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LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 



LEADERS OF 
THE GREAT WAR 



BY 

CORA W. ROWELL 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1919 

All lights reserved 






Copyright, 1919, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and clectrotyped. Published November, 1919. 



NOV 19 ,919 



NortoootJ ^rcgg 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



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PREFACE 

These biographies are an attempt to present to 
children in somewhat detailed form the life and work 
of those men who have been the acknowledged lead- 
ers of France, England, and America in the Great 
War. 

Although the main purpose has been to show the 
human side of each man, and to emphasize through 
anecdote and stories of early life the development of 
the personal qualities that have helped him to suc- 
ceed, there is included a full account of his achieve- 
ments in the war. Taken all together, the sketches 
cover the principal battles of the Western Front and 
the work of the British and American navies. The 
characters of the political leaders have in them- 
selves afforded an opportunity to stress the ideals of 
democracy. 

The book makes no claim to originality. The ma- 
terial has been taken freely from books, magazines, 
and newspapers. A complete list of sources will be 
found at the end of each biography. Quotations 
have been used wherever it has seemed better to give 
the exact words of eye witnesses, rather than to at- 
tempt second hand and necessarily more lifeless 



VI PREFACE 

descriptions, and every effort has been made to obtain 
accuracy. 

I wish especially to express my appreciation for per- 
mission to reproduce parts of text from the following 
books and magazines: And They Thought We 
Wouldn't Fight, Floyd Gibbons; With the Fighting 
Fleets, Ralph D. Paine; Our Navy in the War, Law- 
rence Perry; Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in 
the Great War, Harold F. B. Wheeler; Marshal Fer- 
dinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge; The Battles of 
the Somme, Philip Gibbs; Nezv York Times Current 
History Magamne; World's Work; Atlantic Monthly. 

Cora W. Rowell. 
Glencoe, Illinois, 

July 17, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Marshal Joffre 3 

II. Marshal Petain 28 

III. Marshal Foch 55 

IV. Lord Kitchener 85 

V. Marshal Haig 104 

VI. Admiral Beatty 132 

VII. David Lloyd George 165 

VIII. Georges Clemenceau 195 

IX. Admiral Sims 228 

X. General Pershing 256 

XL WooDROw Wilson 298 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




Marshal Joffre Talking to a Lieutenant of the French 
Cavalry. General Castlenau on the Right 



LEADERS OF THE 
GREAT WAR 

I. MARSHAL JOFFRE 

From the town of Rivesaltes in the southernmost 
province of France all the young men went to war. 
Only the women, the children, and the very old re- 
mained to gather the grapes for which Rivesaltes is 
famed. They went about their work with quiet con- 
fidence. No anxiety for the welfare of France dis- 
turbed them, " What should we fear ? " they said. 
"Haven't we Joffre?" 

Rivesaltes is a town of six thousand inhabitants. 
Its streets are dirty. Its houses are shabby and very 
old. Way back in the Middle Ages the Moors came 
over the mountains from Spain, captured Rivesaltes, 
and built a bridge across its river. This bridge 
is the only beautiful thing in the town to-day, except 
the gardens and trees. Magnificent plane trees shade 
the public square from the hot Mediterranean sun, 
and back of each house a little garden hides crumbling 
white walls. 

The Jofifre family lived in a house as plain and 
shabby as all the rest. It was so old that it lacked the 



4 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

comforts of the poorest laborer's cottage in America, 
yet the Joffres were not poor. By the side of the 
house stood the father's shop. He was a cooper and 
made casks and barrels for the wine which was the 
chief product of this vineyard country. 

He also owned a vineyard which brought him a 
small income. Without this income there might 
never have been a General Joffre, for the profits from 
the business alone were not enough to support, much 
less to educate, eleven children. 

The third child, a boy, was born on the 12th of 
January, 1852, and two days later his name was en- 
tered upon the town hall register as Joseph Jacques 
Cesaire Joffre. 

As soon as he was old enough he was sent to the 
elementary school. He did not like school. It was 
tiresome to sit all day on a hard bench when there were 
so many interesting things to do out of doors. He 
preferred to run in the fields and play by the river. 
His teachers thought him willful and scatter-brained 
and dull. 

But when he finished the elementary school and en- 
tered the Lycee, or high school, in the near-by city of 
Perpignan, a remarkable change took place. All at 
once he became a brilliant student. A great love for 
work seized him. He could not read enough. In 
class he would pile stacks of books between his com- 
rades and himself, lest someone disturb his study. 
During vacations, when he returned to Rivesaltes, his 
old companions scarcely saw him. The battle of peb- 



MARSJrAL JOFFRE 5 

bles by the river, which had been a favorite game in his 
younger days, went on without him while he shut him- 
self in his room to read. 

As the time drew near when he would take his de- 
gree at Perpignan, he began to think more and more 
about his career. What was he going to do? To 
settle this important question a family council was 
called, and it was decided that Joseph should go into 
the army. But first he must go to i^aris to prepare 
himself to enter the Ecole Polytechnique. 

The Ecole Polytechnique is a training school for 
military officers. As the requirements are known to 
be very high, the townspeople shook their heads when 
they heard of Joseph Joffre's choice of a career. 
'' It's a long way from Rivesaltes to Paris," they said. 
''The boy is altogether too ambitious for a cooper's 
son." But one day they saw him, a mere lad of fifteen, 
set out with his father for Paris. The Joffre family 
had not been influenced by village talk. They were 
still determined to educate one son for the army. 

The next two years Joseph spent at a private school 
in Paris preparing for his examinations. France 
wants only the best of her youth in the nation's serv- 
ice; that is why the examinations for the training 
schools are made so very hard. Joseph Joffre passed 
fourteenth in a class of one hundred thirty-two. His 
papers, which are still in existence, are said to be 
models of '' neatness, clear thinking, and precise 
knowledge." 

He was seventeen now, a tall, slender boy with fair 



6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

hair and blue eyes, quiet and meditative. He rarely 
spoke. His manner was gentle, almost timid, and 
this caused him a lot of trouble, for his standing on 
the lists had given him the rank of sergeant, making 
him responsible for the conduct of the classroom. As 
he was also the youngest boy of the class, he found 
that he had his hands full to keep order. There were 
some trying days ; then, after a time, things went bet- 
ter. He had worked out a system of discipline all his 
own. In order not to seem gentle he went to the 
opposite extreme. He was very strict, sometimes 
severe, but no one ever complained that he was not fair. 

The school to which Joseph Joffre had come was 
very old. It had been founded in 1794. Ten years 
later the great Napoleon had given it a motto: " Sci- 
ence and glory, all for country." And in the hundred 
twenty-five years that had passed since, many boys 
had come and gone, carrying this motto into many 
fields of work, until there had grown up in the school 
a respect for learning that was almost the same thing 
as love for France. 

" If you would serve your country, educate your- 
self," these beautiful old buildings seemed to say. 

A boy could hardly fail to be impressed by his sur- 
roundings, for the Ecole Polytechnique is in that part 
of Paris w^here, for centuries, there have been schools 
and universities, where every street and shop and 
lodging house is associated with men who have made 
the greatness of France. 

Young Joffre, too, dreamed of one day becoming 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 7 

great. In fact he dreamed a great deal about every- 
thing now, and his dreaming interfered with his 
studies. During that first year at the Ecole Poly- 
technique he seemed to be a combination of all the 
things he had been in his younger years. One day he 
was all for his books ; the next day he forgot his books 
in thinking of what he was going to do, if it was only 
to plan for his next half-holiday. He could easily 
have held first place in his class had he wished; but 
at the end of the first year he had dropped from the 
fourteenth to the thirty-fifth place, and there he 
remained. His effort was steady and persistent, 
however, and his marks generally were high. 
What he accomplished was neither his poorest nor 
his best. 

It is said that a school day at the Ecole Polytech- 
nique does not differ greatly to-day from what it was 
at the time when Joffre was a student there, so that 
one may think of him as getting up at six o'clock and 
answering roll call at six-thirty. All morning he 
would attend classes, that is from nine until two. In 
order to determine who would recite the boys drew 
lots. In school language those who drew the short 
straws were called the '' fated," and there was a still 
more terrible name for those who failed in their final 
examinations; they were known ever afterwards as 
'' withered fruit." 

In the afternoon came physical and military train- 
ing. The students formed a battalion, officered from 
their own ranks. There were about two hundred 



8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

fifty cadets in all and they were very proud of the 
smartness of their drill. 

The summer of 1870 brought war between France 
and Germany, and Joseph, who had looked forward to 
his first long holiday at home, went instead into one 
of the Paris forts. He was only one of many young 
boys who left school that summer to answer the call 
to arms. He did not go to the front, but remained in 
Paris, helping to defend the capital during the long 
siege. 

In this war one disaster followed another so swiftly 
that four weeks saw the armies of France defeated, 
the monarchy overthrown, a republic created, and the 
Germans at the very gates of Paris. The people of 
Paris, however, did not give up. With the establish- 
ment of the republic, they took heart once more and, 
gathering immense stores of supplies, endeavored to 
hold out until the new armies that were being formed 
could break through the German lines. 

The siege lasted four months, but by the end of the 
second month many were facing starvation. Only the 
rich could obtain food and they ate anything they 
could get. Horse meat sold at two dollars and fifty 
cents a pound, rats at forty cents each. Many beau- 
tiful trees of the Paris parks were cut down to build 
fires for the poor, for there was neither coal nor wood. 
And all the while the city was being bombarded. 
Every day shells fell in the streets, killing and wound- 
ing, yet the people endured as long as there was any 
hope of being relieved. Finally, when it became 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 9 

known that the army was unable to reach the be- 
sieged city and that nothing at all remained to eat, 
Paris was obliged to surrender. 

The war over, Joffre went back to his studies, but in 
six months everything had changed. Most of all he 
had changed. He knew now what war was, what it 
could do to people, what it had done to him. France 
had been defeated, humiliated, forced to buy peace by 
giving up a part of her soil. He suffered from the 
thought as from a wound. To relieve his suffering 
he wrote a poem about the lost provinces, Alsace and 
Lorraine. Still the hurt did not heal. His common 
sense told him that mere feeling would not help. One 
had to do something. In his quiet way he resolved 
that he would do something. He would learn all there 
was to know about war, having seen for himself that 
in time of war knowledge is the thing of which a 
country has greatest need. And, having been born 
in the mountains, where people do not change their 
minds every day, this resolve is the story of all the 
rest of Joffre's life. 

Two years later he graduated from the Polytech- 
nique and entered a more advanced military school to 
finish his studies. He chose the engineering corps, 
making a specialty of fortifications. Immediately 
following the Franco-Prussian war France began to 
build new defenses for Paris and Joffre's first work 
as a commissioned lieutenant was on these fortifica- 
tions. He did his work so well that he was made a 
captain at twenty-four. However, he remained a cap- 



lO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

tain for thirteen years, for he was, after all, only one 
of many young engineers who were equally efficient. 

Whenever he had a furlough he went home to 
Rivesaltes. Of an evening old friends and neighbors 
would drop in for a visit, or if they did not, there was 
his old father, who never tired of hearing stories of 
army life. Joffre was always a boy in Rivesaltes. 
One might see him at any time coming out of a con- 
fectioner's shop, his pockets stuffed with cakes. 

On the occasion of one of these visits he went to a 
neighboring town to inspect some new fortifications 
and was arrested for a spy. As he offered no ex- 
planation he was taken before the authorities. They 
desired to know if he was a German. This amused 
him very much. 

" I am a German of Rivesaltes with three gold 
bands on my cap," he said. (Three gold bands de- 
noted the rank of captain.) He spoke in the native 
dialect of the country, which was half Spanish, half 
French. The officers were astonished. He had in- 
tended that they should be; nothing delighted him 
more than a good joke. 

When he had been building fortifications for thir- 
teen years he asked for active service in the colonies. 
He felt that his work had not been teaching him 
enough about war. After a few years in Indo-China, 
where the natives of a certain village still remember 
him as " the man of the eyebrows " who made their 
village healthy, he returned, decorated with the cross 
of the Legion of Honor, to be sent into Africa. The 



MARSHAL JOFFRE II 

careers of Joffre and Kitchener, at this time, were 
closely parallel. Kitchener went into the Egyptian 
Sudan, Joffre into French West Africa. 

For a time Joffre worked at building a railroad 
across the desert; then he was ordered far into the 
interior to subdue the Arabs who were destroying the 
commerce of the country by fighting and robbing. 
With a little army of a thousand men, he marched five 
hundred miles across a wilderness of desert and marsh 
to the Arsh town of Timbuctoo. Before this time 
but three white men had ever penetrated the desert as 
far as Timbuctoo. It was a country of lions, of hip- 
popotami, of fever and thirst. 

On the march Joffre was stung in the eye by a 
poisonous insect and the doctor ordered him to band- 
age it, lest he lose his eyesight. 

"How can I direct my troops blindfolded?" he 
objected. 

" Well then, wear blue spectacles," said the doctor. 

As blue spectacles did not grow on tropical trees, 
Joffre was obliged to disregard this advice also, but 
after he reached Timbuctoo, there arrived in the mail 
one day a pair of blue spectacles. They had been sent 
to an of^cer who had been killed and they probably 
saved the eyesight of a future general. 

It was following the march to Timbuctoo that the 
people at home began to take a little notice of Joffre. 
His name appeared in the newspapers. Many stories 
were told of that wilderness journey and from them 
all one important fact came to light — Joffre had sue- 



12 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

ceeded in reaching Timbuctoo because he knew how 
to plan. He had guarded his troops with the great- 
est care, doing sentry duty himself through many a 
lonely night because he could not trust native soldiers 
to keep awake. Arabs did not fight in the open ; they 
shot in the back from the shelter of trees and bushes. 
And Joffre would not be surprised. 

When the desert seemed entirely to have swallowed 
his little army and when the news reached him that thir- 
teen of his fellow officers, who had tried to reach Tim- 
buctoo by a different route, had been killed, he had 
relentlessly pushed on. Will and method, these were 
the qualities by which he succeeded when others 
failed. 

But it was not until 1911, when Joffre was fifty- 
nine, that he reached a position of prominence in 
affairs. That year he was appointed chief general 
of the supreme war council of France. On him rested 
the responsibility of preparing France for the war that 
those who had watched the preparations of Germany 
felt certain would come. The government, at last, 
had come to value Joffre's knowledge. 

Formerly, any officer who had money or friends 
among government officials could win a promotion in 
the French army, with the result that some of the 
highest officers, on whom the heaviest responsibilities 
would fall in time of war, were unfit for their work. 
Joffre changed all this. One general whom he re- 
tired, following the maneuvers of 1913, came to 
demand a reason. 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 13 

"Why?" he asked. ''I obeyed the orders I re- 
ceived." 

" You might have done better," was Joffre's answer. 

Not mere obedience but the abiUty to think was the 
rule by which he measured officers. The soldier, too, 
was made to feel that he was a thinking, responsible 
part of the army. If he had suggestions to make he 
was free to make them. Officers often consulted their 
men and talked over their plans with them. Joifre 
believed in a democratic army. 

After war came his officers discovered how much 
he believed in it. As often as possible he would slip 
away from his desk and go on a visit to his poilus. 
Squatting beside a trench fire, he demanded to know 
all about them. Were they comfortable? Were 
their blankets warm? Did they have enough to eat? 
Did they want for anything? Sometimes they did, 
and he would take out a notebook and write down 
these things. It might be weeks before there was 
any change, but one day there were certain to appear 
the little improvements they had asked for. 

To his men he was always '' Our Joff re " or 
'' Grandfather Joff re." They would not think of call- 
ing him by any name that did not express their affec- 
tion for him. " This thing must be done," said an 
officer one day. '' It is Grandfather's order." 

It was not alone the army that needed to be com- 
pletely reorganized during those three years between 
1911 and 1914, but the civil population as well. 

" The next war," said Joffre, '' is going to be a 



14 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

scientific war. It will be fought by the whole nation. 
To be ready means to have turned all the intelligence, 
the energy, and the resources of France toward one 
object, victory." 

The task of mobilizing an entire nation is so big 
that one can hardly imagine what it meant to think 
it out. When it came England's turn to unite all her 
people and industries into one vast war purpose, she 
had the experience of France upon which to base her 
plans. America had the experience of both England 
and France, but Joffre had none. Warfare on such 
a huge scale was as yet unknown to the world. Who 
could have said then how many shells would be needed 
for a single battle? Who would have guessed that 
the next war would be fought with liquid fire and poi- 
sonous gases ? To be prepared did not mean actually 
to have made all these things in advance but to know 
how and where they could be made in time of war. 
What factories could be turned into ammunition fac- 
tories? Where could materials be bought? Where 
were laborers to be found? 

Such were the problems over which Joffre worked 
in addition to that task, so big in itself, of training and 
equipping a great army. 

He worked so quietly that, until the war, he re- 
mained almost unknown. Few school children could 
have told the name of their chief general. The French 
people were indifferent. "Why all this fuss about 
preparation," they said, "when there will never be 
another war? " Then came the first of August, 1914. 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 15 

On that day France knew that she must fight. She 
was bound by treaty to Russia, and Germany had de- 
clared war on Russia. Two days later the Germans 
crossed the French boundary and there Joffre's sol- 
diers met them. Then, all at once, it became clear 
what Joffre had done. France had an army scientif- 
ically organized and equipped. It lacked Germany's 
numbers and it lacked Germany's big guns, but it had 
one weapon which Germany had not. This was some- 
thing called moral force. The French believed that 
men fightmg for their homes and families would fight 
more bravely than the enemy who attacked. But they, 
and perhaps even Joffre himself, did not know how 
rapidly Germany could throw the full weight of her 
armies against them. Before such a weight smaller 
numbers gave way. Belgians, French, and British, 
in turn, fought with a courage that will live forever 
in history, but they could not stem the increasing tide 
of Germans. 

They poured into France from two main directions 
according to a long-prepared plan, through Belgium 
and through Alsace. These divisions made the two 
jaws of the pincers which, according to the plan, were 
finally to close, crushing the French army between 
them. 

At Charleroi, Belgium, they defeated the French 
armies and forced them to retreat. It was one of the 
worst defeats of the war. In another sense it was 
the beginning of the victory of the Marne, for from 
that moment Joffre's plans began to take shape. 



1 6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

For the French people, however, who did not know 
Joffre's plans, some dark days followed. Their feel- 
ing of confidence changed quickly into one of anxiety, 
even of despair, as the Germans overran their villages, 
burning their houses and killing civilians. On they 
came with truly marvelous speed, the French and 
British armies sometimes escaping with the greatest 
difficulty. 

The French begged to be allowed to fight. Officers 
and men alike grew disheartened at seeing city after 
city given to the Germans. As each day came they 
thought they surely would be allowed to make a stand. 
No more than the people themselves did they know 
JofYre's purpose. Only to the highest officers had 
he said : '' I mean to deliver the big battle in the most 
favorable conditions, at my own time, and on the 
ground I have chosen. If necessary I shall continue 
to retreat. I shall bide my time. No consideration 
whatever will make me alter my plans." Therefore, 
day after day, the order was the same — to retreat 
further south until the left wing of the Allied army 
rested on Paris itself. 

Joifre's plans for the coming battle included every 
department of the service. All over France thou- 
sands of trains were moving day and night. Troops 
were shifted from the east, west, north, and south. 
When the cities of Belgium and northern France fell, 
Joffre had in waiting several hundred trains with 
which to rescue the larger part of his armies and sup- 
plies. A little later his trains met the refugees, 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 17 

streaming south by the hundreds of thousands, and 
carried them to safety. Finally, when Paris became 
a part of the battle line, Joffre's trains removed the 
government, a large part of the civil population, the 
treasures of the art galleries, and the gold of the 
Paris banks. At the same time he prepared the city 
for a siege. He knew what a siege meant. He did 
not intend that the suffering of 1870 should be re- 
peated. Huge quantities of supplies were purchased, 
enough to feed and clothe and warm the city's popu- 
lation if the war should last a long time. All 
around Paris soldiers were digging trenches as fast 
as they could and mounting guns. 

While these preparations were being rushed, the 
enemy steadily advanced. Every day airplanes flew 
over Paris and dropped leaflets informing the people 
that the Germans were at their gates. It was true 
that the largest of the German armies, under General 
von Kluck, was marching straight toward Paris. This 
army had fought its way through Belgium. The men 
were tired, yet the situation demanded that they 
advance with the greatest speed. In spite of the ex- 
treme heat of August, they made twenty-five miles a 
day. A page from the notebook of one of von Kluck's 
officers tells the story of this advance : 

'' Our soldiers are worn out. For four days they 
have been marching forty kilos a day. The ground 
is difficult, the roads are torn up, trees felled, the 
fields pitted by shells like strainers. The soldiers 
stagger at every step, their faces are plastered with 



l8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

mud, their uniforms are in rags ; one might call them 
living rags. They march with closed eyes and sing 
in chorus to keep from falling asleep as they march. 
The certainty of victory close at hand and of their 
triumphal entry into Paris sustains them and whips 
up their enthusiasm. Without this certainty they 
would fall exhausted. They would lie down where 
they are, to sleep at last, no matter where, no matter 
how. Only the delirium of victory keeps our men 
going. And to give their bodies a drunkenness like 
that of their souls they drink enormously. But this 
drunkenness also helps to keep them up. To-day, after 
an inspection, the general was furiously angry. He 
wanted to put a stop to this collective debauch. We 
have just persuaded him not to give severe orders. 
It is better not to be too strict; otherwise the army 
could not go at all. For this abnormal weariness 
abnormal stimulants are needed. In Paris we shall 
remedy all this. We shall forbid the drinking of alco- 
hol there. When our troops are at last able to rest 
on their laurels order will be restored." 

A day or two later found the Germans actually in 
the suburbs of Paris. The same officer describes the 
joy of the men in discovering their nearness to their 
goal. He says: 

"One of our battalions was marching wearily for- 
ward. All at once, while passing a cross road, they 
discovered a signpost on which they read ' Paris, Z7 
kilos' (23 miles). It was the first sign that had not 
been erased. On seeing it the battalion was as though 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 19 

shaken up by an electric current. The word ' Paris ' 
which they have just read drives them crazy. Some 
of them embrace the wretched signpost, others dance 
round it. Cries, yells of enthusiasm accompany these 
mad actions. This signpost is the evidence that we 
are near Paris, that without doubt we shall soon be 
really there. This notice board has made a mirac- 
ulous effect. Faces light up, weariness seems to dis- 
appear, the march is resumed, alert, cadenced, in spite 
of the abominable ground in this forest. Songs burst 
louder and no longer the traditional songs, but Pari- 
sian ditties, stupid enough in all conscience." 

A little way beyond the signpost over which this 
battalion had rejoiced the officers made a discovery 
they dared not tell their men; they were no longer 
marching toward Paris. Leaving Paris at the very 
moment when it was theirs for the taking, they had 
suddenly swerved to the south and east and, though 
they did not know it, they were marching directly into 
the trap Joff re had prepared for them. 

When the long retreat ended the Allied armies stood 
on a bow-shaped line, of which the western end was 
Paris, the eastern end Verdun. This line did not run 
through the valley of the Marne, although the battle 
was to take its name from that river. It lay to the 
south, and it was for this reason that von Kluck had 
passed Paris. To have taken the city without defeat- 
ing the Allied armies would not end the war, but, 
having defeated them, the taking of Paris would be a 
simple matter. Besides, it would be more fitting if 
the triumphal entry should follow a final victory. 



20 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Consequently von Kluck turned southeast. This 
was exactly what Joffre had hoped he would do. Ten 
days before the battle Joffre's plans were complete. 
It was only a matter then of waiting until the Ger- 
mans advanced to a point where he meant to strike. 
That point was reached on the 6th of September. 
On the Sth all of the final preparations were made. 
Joffre had attended to the smallest details and given 
his instructions. Success or failure depended on the 
intelligence with which these instructions were car- 
ried out and on the courage of the men. Joffre him- 
self was confident and unmoved. He sent President 
Poincare a telegram to say that, though the fate of 
France depended on the morrow, the chances of vic- 
tory were many. 

The next morning, along the whole line, officers 
gathered their men around them and read them the 
order of the day. The hour for which they had 
waited so long had come. 

" At the moment of engaging in a battle on which 
the fate of the country hangs, it is necessary to remind 
everyone that the time has passed for looking back- 
ward. Every effort must be made to attack and 
drive back the enemy. The hour has come to advance 
at any cost, and to die where you stand rather than 
give way. Joffre." 

Fortunately the German High Command did not 
discover Joffre's maneuver until it had been accom- 
plished. Their purpose having been to strike the 
French-British line at the center, von Kluck hurried on 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 21 

to give more weight to the blow and left his right flank 
insufficiently protected. Against this Joffre flung a 
new army. To the Germans it must have seemed a 
phantom army. They knew that some French troops 
guarded the region upon their right, but they did not 
know that an army w^as there. From various other 
parts of the front Joffre had taken men and sent them 
with all possible speed to the north of Paris. Some 
he had taken from Paris itself, right under the eyes 
of the Germans, had stolen them out in the night in 
automobiles and busses. At the moment the French- 
British forces attacked from the south, the new army 
w^ould strike from the north. So Joffre had planned, 
and so it happened that Sunday morning, the 6th of 
September. Von Kluck, caught between them, was 
forced to retreat ; only by great skill did he succeed in 
saving his army. 

The German officer's description of the utter weari- 
ness of his soldiers would have been equally true had 
he been writing of the French. For fourteen days 
the French had been falling back, fighting every day 
to hold the Germans until the new line was reached 
and the army prepared for battle. Crowded in cattle 
cars or in trucks, or marching, there was no rest by 
day and often none at night. 

" They had marched," says a French writer, " under 
a torrid sky, on scorching roads, parched and suffo- 
cated with dust. In reality they moved with their 
hearts rather than with their legs. . . . But when, 
worn out with fatigue, faces black with powder, 



22 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

blinded by the chalk dust of Champag-ne, almost dying, 
they learned Joffre's order announcing the offensive, 
then the faces of our troops beamed with joy. They 
fought with tired limbs and yet no army ever showed 
such strength, for their hearts were filled with faith 
and hope/' 

Von Kluck's army was retreating, but von Kluck's 
army had held only the western end of the two hun- 
dred fifty mile battle line. The six remaining Ger- 
man armies were still engaged in trying to break 
through. Learning that von Kluck had been de- 
feated, they drove furiously upon the French center, 
caring little how many lives were spent so long as 
they gained their purpose. It was General Foch who 
held the French center. 

" A battle won," says General Foch, " is a battle in 
which one refuses to believe one's self beaten." And 
that was what happened at the Marne. At the very 
moment of defeat, Foch flung the Germans back by a 
skillful maneuver and turned defeat into victory. 
'' Our men hold the heights," wrote a German officer, 
" but the French have become demons ; they charge in 
the face of machine gun fire, joyfully letting them- 
selves be killed. Their valor is superhuman." 

On the 9th of September, three days after Joffre 
had struck his blow, the Kaiser signed the order for 
the retreat of all the German armies. Back now 
across the country that had afforded them so many 
victories, back from Paris, back fifty miles to the 
river Aisne before they could again make a stand, 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 23 

men, weary with fighting, ran until they dropped from 
exhaustion, throwing away their guns and equipment 
as they ran. Thousands, too weary to run at all, were 
made prisoners by the advancing French. Officers, 
billeted back of the lines, rushed from their rooms 
with the cry of " The French are here," and jumped 
into waiting automobiles to escape capture. Peas- 
ants living in villages along the line of retreat tell of 
German soldiers, ragged, dirty, foot-sore, with 
tongues swollen from thirst, rushing through the 
streets, the French literally on their heels. 

To the people of Paris the news of the victory came 
tardily. There had been anxious days and long, wake- 
ful nights, through which there sounded a far-off reg- 
ular booming that seemed never to end. A great 
battle was going on, that much they knew. But how 
was it going to end ? Would the French win ? Could 
they win? 

" Of course ! There are no fighters like the 
French," said those who looked hopefully upon these 
dark days. 

" But you do not know how the Germans are pre- 
pared," said others. " They have everything. Their 
equipment is the last word in science. Trains of am- 
munition are crossing the border day and night. And 
the men ! Now, at this minute, they are pouring into 
France by the hundreds of thousands. They are 
going to wipe us out." 

Rumxors came and went. Now it was far to the 
north that a battle was being fought, now it was near 



24 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

by, not thirty miles away. Was it not clear enough 
that the authorities were getting ready to defend 
Paris? 

It was true that the streets, which had been more 
or less deserted after the first days of mobilization, 
were filled with troops again. Automobiles, busses, 
and vehicles of all sorts went rumbling by, crowded 
to the limit with soldiers. 

The railway stations swarmed with people, soldiers 
bidding good-bye to their families, regiments of the 
reserves, men who had been kept for the time when 
France would stake everything in some big battle, to 
win or lose. 

Then came the news of victory. The Germans were 
retreating. Joffre had hit them a terrible blow. 
Joffre! That name was on everybody's lips. The 
news spread .quickly. One could almost trace its 
progress by the flags that appeared suddenly every- 
where. Finally it reached the home of Joffre in the 
suburb of Auteuil. 

Parisians did not know Joffre until the war came, 
but the people of Auteuil knew him well. They saw 
him early in the morning, as early as six o'clock, riding 
in the Bois with his two daughters. They saw him 
in the evening taking his walk. 

'' The general does not want to get too stout," they 
would say, laughing. '' He is very particular about 
that." 

Passing the home of Joffre of an evening, they 
nearly always heard music, for the man who made of 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 25 

war a science likes music better than anything else. 
Madame Joffre plays the piano. The daughters sing. 
JoiTre himself sings, as all the army knows. 

'' We always knew Joffre would do it," people called 
to each other when the news reached Auteuil. Then 
they remembered their gardens and the flowers grow- 
ing in them, for no other purpose, surely, than to make 
memorable the day of victory. They cut them and 
carried them, an offering, to the home of Joffre. They 
tied them to the gate posts, to the iron railings of the 
fence ; they made a carpet of blossoms that led to the 
door. It was in this way that those who had not yet 
heard the news learned that there had been a victory 
on the Marne. 

One morning in the spring of 1917 a French liner 
appeared off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Joffre — 
Marshal JofTre now, highest officer of the French 
army — had his first sight of iVmerica. It was a 
clear, bright morning of May, and the sun shone over 
a smooth sea, stretching away to green shores. 

''What a wonderful scene," said Joffre. "I love 
this sunshine. It reminds me of my own country, the 
south of France." 

A month before, America had entered the war, and 
Joffre, with several other French of^cers and states- 
men, had come to put before our government the ur-^ 
gent need of France for men. America had planned 
for large armies, but it would be months before these 
armies were sufficiently trained to take over a part of 
the battle line in France. 



26 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

'' Do not wait," was what Joffre had come to say. 
" Do not wait until the American armies are ready to 
take the field, but send us as many men as you can 
spare now. The French people are growing tired of 
the war. They cannot believe it will ever end. There 
remains but one hope — America. Nothing would 
hearten the French people so much as seeing Amer- 
ican soldiers in France. Let them finish their train- 
ing there. Our camps, our schools, our experience 
— all are at your disposal. Only send us your men 
as quickly as possible that the people may understand 
America's promise to end the war." 

From the moment Jofifre landed, American hearts 
went out to him. He was greeted with an enthusiasm 
that knew no bounds. French flags waved gaily in 
every city he visited; thousands of school children, 
singing the Marseillaise, threw flowers before him; 
crowds that did not usually give way to their emotions 
broke wildly into cheers as he passed through the 
streets. 

It was a tumult of welcome to a great man, but, 
more than that, it meant that Americans, after three 
and a half years, understood that the battle of the 
Marne had been something greater than a struggle 
between nations. It had been a struggle for ideals 
as well. Military power or freedom — which was to 
rule the world? Freedom had won the battle but it 
had not yet won the final victory. Through all the 
months of war there had been the doubt as to whether 
it could win the final victory. Now America was the 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 27 

answer to that doubt. The flag of freedom had be- 
come the symbol of freedom for all the world, and 
Joffre was confident. In presenting a flag to one of 
our regiments he ended with these words : 

'' Perhaps it will go to France, there to wave side 
by side with the flag of France, which for three years 
has led the onset against our foes. And when our 
soldiers see the Star Spangled Banner, their souls will 
thrill. And I am assured it is to the final victory both 
will go." 

REFERENCES 

Le General Joffre, Alphonse Seche. 

Makers of Nezv France, Charles Dawbarn. 

Life of General Joffre, Alexander Kahn. 

My March to T imbue too, Joseph J. Joffre. 

Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre, Their Speeches in America, Fran- 
cis Whiting Halsey. 

Foch the Man, Clara E. Laughlin. 

War Leaders of France, Charles Johnston, Review of Reviews, 
April, 1915. 

Joffre and the Nezv France, James Middleton, World's Work, 
May, 1915. 

General Joffre's Personality, Charles Johnston, Outlook, July 
14, 1915. 

Joffre's War, Literary Digest, Feb. 20, 1915. 

Allies versus Germany, the Strategy of the Campaign, Frank 
Simonds, Review of Reviews, Oct., 1914. 

Hozv Joffre and Foch Saved the French Army, E. V. Stoddard, 
World's Work, June, 1915. 

French Railroads and the Battle of the Marne, W. S. Hiatt, 
Engineering Magazine, Oct., 1915. 

The German Version of the Marne, J. Reinach, Current His- 
tory Magazine, Sept., 1917. 

The March on Paris, H. Van Loon, Century, June, 1915. 



11. MARSHAL PETAIN 

In February of 1916 General Joffre, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the French armies, observed that 
the Germans were preparing to attack near the city of 
Verdun. Trains of ammunition were moving day 
and night from the factories to the German Hues. 
Great armies were being massed and so many big guns 
were brought up that, when placed, they literally 
stood wheel to wheel. 

But General Joffre could not tell whether these 
preparations indicated a battle for Verdun itself or 
whether the Germans meant to attack at that point 
merely to draw reserves from some other point of the 
French line, where the real battle would take place. 
Until he knew the enemy's purpose he could only wait. 
Meanwhile he prepared his defenses as best he could. 

Had Joffre been able to see all that was taking place 
behind the German lines he would have known. Some 
200,000 men had been massed for a single attack on a 
front of less than ten miles; that is, there were ten 
Germans to every yard of ground. The strongest 
men and the best fighters had been organized into 
companies of shock troops, whose special work it was 
to break the enemy's line. Shock troops were used 
for the first time at Verdun. The Germans had 

28 



MARSHAL PETAIN 29 

80,000 such troops for this one battle and they had 
been drilhng for four months. Every detail contrib- 
uting to the success of a great battle had been care- 
fully planned. For instance, each soldier carried a 
small map of the Verdun fortifications; he knew ex- 
actly where he was to go and what he was to do. 
Finally, when the hour for action had been set, there 
was a dress rehearsal for the entire army. The 
Kaiser himself had come to direct this rehearsal and 
to cheer his men as they went into battle. So con- 
fident was he of victory that he also rehearsed the 
scene of surrender. It was to take place in the most 
historic spot in the city, a square called the Place 
d'Armes. There he was to review the victorious 
armies of his son, for the Crown Prince was to have 
the honor of capturing Verdun. 

The situation of Verdun is in the center of a plain, 
watered by the Meuse river and closed in by more or 
less distant hills. On the left bank of the river the 
Old or High Town clings to a huge rocky mound, from 
which it looks down some fifty or sixty feet upon the 
modern city. From the crest of the mound rise the 
cathedral and the citadel. This citadel, with its great 
circle of forty-five forts situated on the surrounding 
hills, has, since the eighteenth century, been known as 
the most famous stronghold of France. Before 1914 
it was thought impossible to take Verdun, but early in 
the war it was proved that modern large shells could 
destroy the strongest fortifications, so the French re- 
moved the guns from the citadel and turned it into a 



30 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

bakery. The real defenses of the city were the 
trenches. These lay far to the north among the hills 
and along the Meuse river. 

At first the French were puzzled to know why the 
Germans wanted Verdun. It could not be for any 
military reason, for they knew as well as anyone that 
the guns had been removed from all the forts. It 
proved to be for a reason much more subtle. The 
Germans knew that Verdun, with its great circle of 
forts, w^as still a stronghold in the minds of the French 
people, and they believed that its loss would so under- 
mine the courage of the nation that France would be 
compelled to withdraw from the war. When the 
French understood this they decided to defend Ver- 
dun at whatever cost. 

Early one morning, while the inhabitants of the city 
still slept, there came the sharp, unmistakable sound 
of airplane guns, followed by the signal to seek shel- 
ter. Instead, people rushed from their houses into 
the streets to watch the attack. Over the city and 
far to the north the dim sky was filled with planes of 
every description. They were engaged in dropping 
bombs on bridges and fortifications and in destroying 
French observation balloons. Before the air bom- 
bardment ended there came a tremendous roar from 
the hills and the earth shook as, all at once, two thou- 
sand guns opened fire. 

All day the bombardment continued, increasing in 
intensity hour by hour. From the ceaseless flashing 
of the guns the surrounding woods appeared to be on 



MARSHAL PETAIN 31 

fire. Overhead the clouds had turned red and gold. 
Bursting shells sent up great columns of smoke and 
left huge black patches in the white snow. There was 
a smell of burning wood, of hot metals and chemicals 
in the air. Trees crashed and fell. Trenches and 
shelters collapsed like cardboard. 

It seemed impossible that in the midst of such de- 
struction any human being could survive. It was the 
purpose of the bombardment that no one should sur- 
vive. "The artillery," said a German infantry offi- 
cer, " wall destroy everything and we have only to 
advance as on parade." So they came, marching with 
the goose step, shoulder to shoulder, " as on parade." 
Whole companies, including the famous shock troops, 
were hurled in wave after wave at a single point in 
the French line. This point was on the right bank 
of the Meuse, and the Germans meant to drive the 
French army into the river. 

With their backs to the stream, the French faced 
the terrific gunfire, knowing that they must die and 
determined to make the enemy pay the utmost for 
their lives. Throughout the night the battle raged 
and, when morning came, it brought still more terrible 
things to be endured. At dawn the Germans poured 
quantities of high explosives, tear shells, and liquid 
fire into the French lines. With only shell holes for 
shelter, without food, water, or sleep, the French 
fought on, day after day and night after night. 

The heaviest attack of all fell on the afternoon of 
the fourth day. " The German waves came on," says 



32 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

a French writer, " as though driven by a tempestuous 
wind." The Emperor was on the ground and the Ger- 
man High Command wished to end the battle then. 

The French, outnumbered three to one, clung des- 
perately to their positions, but, little by little, they were 
driven back. In four days they retreated four miles. 
The situation was critical for each mile brought them 
nearer to the river. 

Joffre, who had followed the battle hour by hour 
at General Headquarters, determined to prepare for 
any event by forming a new army under General 
Petain, commander of the Second Army, then in 
reserve. 

As the anxiety was so very great, General Castle- 
nau, chief of staff, proposed to go himself to the battle 
front to give an exact account of the situation. 

It was a sad spectacle that met his eyes as he ap- 
proached Verdun in the gray dawn of the next morn- 
ing. The Meuse had overflowed all the valley and 
was as large as an arm of the sea. Along the road 
poured a stream of civilians, each with his bundle of 
personal belongings. They had remained in the city 
in spite of an order of evacuation and were fleeing 
now before the bombardment. With them came the 
wounded, those who could walk, their bandages show- 
ing white against their ragged and mud-stained uni- 
forms. In the opposite direction an endless line of 
troops was going toward the battle. Verdun, bom- 
barded without mercy, was partly demolished. Shells 
had fallen upon the beautiful cathedral, but the citadel 
was as yet unharmed. 



MARSHAL PETAIN 33 

Meanwhile General Petain, with the Second Army, 
was also hurrying toward Verdun. He arrived that 
night at headquarters and conferred with General 
Castlenau, who had by that time returned from the 
battlefield. Seeing him enter, Castlenau said : " Ah, 
you are here, Petain. You are to take command. I 
leave everything to you. You will take command at 
midnight." 

The day before. General Joffre had ordered that the 
Germans must be held at the right bank of the river 
at zvhatever cost. General Castlenau now confirmed 
this order. 

" They must not pass," he said. It was the final 
judgment on the situation. 

" They shall not pass," the new commander an- 
swered. 

It was not long until these words had reached the 
line. They became the battle cry of the fresh divi- 
sions going into the trenches. They gave new cour- 
age to the men who had been fighting for days. The 
French resistance grew stronger. Each brave act 
meant " They shall not pass the Meuse." 

As yet the army had not seen General Petain. The 
night he arrived at headquarters in the little village 
of Souilly, just back of Verdun, he took a severe cold 
and was obliged to remain in his room for several 
days. The time had passed, however, when it was 
necessary for a general to be at the front. Imme- 
diately upon arriving. General Petain telegraphed all 
the corps commanders that he had taken command. 



34 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




Marshal Petain 



MARSHAL PETAIN 35 

One of them replied, "Oh, it's you, Petain. Then 
everything will be all right ! " 

Sitting at his desk with all his maps and plans be- 
fore him, Petain began that very night the difficult 
task of straightening out the confusion which the ter- 
rible fighting had left. The problems he faced could 
hardly have been more discouraging. The army was 
in a position of extreme peril between the Germans 
and the Meuse river. There was barely enough am- 
munition to last ten days and the only railroad over 
which supplies and ammunition could be brought was 
commanded by German guns. 

In such a situation General Petain's now famous 
words, " They shall not pass," however fine a courage 
they expressed, would have availed little had he not 
known what to do. 

But immediately he began to issue orders. One of 
the first things to be done was to unite the forts along 
the battle front by a continuous line of trenches. His 
order was that the trenches should be prepared while 
the battle zvas going on. At the same time an order 
went out for many bridges across the Meuse, all this 
between midnight and morning of the next day. 

Then Petain began his great work of construction, 
the building of railroad lines, wagon roads, canals, 
reservoirs, stations, cantonments, dugouts, trenches. 
He has always been a great road-builder. Wherever 
he has gone, he has constructed new roads or repaired 
old ones. 

In two days' time order had been created out of con- 



36 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

fusion. The machinery of war was running smoothly 
once more, and Petain ordered a counter-attack. 

To this the Germans repHed with another attack. 
So the fighting went on, certain positions changing 
hands many times. During the first ten days of the 
battle the Germans launched twenty-six infantry at- 
tacks. On the 4th of March they took one of the 
outlying forts, called Douaumont. The fort was 
without men or guns, but bells rang for an hour 
throughout Germany over its '' fall." With this 
fortress lost, the Germans said, the French could not 
hope to hold out much longer and Verdun itself was 
only a matter of days. On the 9th of March they 
captured another fort, called Fort Vaux. It was no 
more important than Douaumont, except that it 
brought them one step nearer Verdun. 

After three weeks, this first great battle for the 
possession of Verdun came to an end, but no one sup- 
posed that the Germans would stop there. Joifre 
wrote to the Verdun armies in an order of the day: 
'' The struggle is not yet at an end, for the Germans 
require a victory. You will succeed in wresting it 
from them. We have munitions and reserves in 
abundance, but above all you have indomitable cour- 
age and faith in the destinies of the Republic. The 
eyes of the country are upon you. You will be among 
those of whom it will be said they barred the road 
to Verdun to the Germans." 

Until then the war had offered no parallel to the 
battle of Verdun. The soldier, going into the 



MARSHAL PETAIN 37 

trenches, was certain to be wounded or stifled by 
gases; he was almost as certain to die. If he Hved 
through the artillery bombardment, he lived only to 
meet the enemy in hand to hand fighting of the most 
desperate kind, in deep woods, at the bottom of 
ravines, in the dark underground passages of the 
forts. On both sides soldiers fought with a courage 
that made the word " Verdun " a new measure of 
things men could endure. 

The months of February, March, and April of 1916 
were months of continued terrible fighting. The Ger- 
mans, having failed in their first plan to take Verdun 
in " a battle such as the world had never seen before," 
now tried another. This was to lay siege to the city 
while they attacked alternately on the left and right 
banks of the Meuse, sometimes on both. For, having 
once undertaken to capture V^erdun, they could not 
very well give it up. The eyes of all the world were 
on them. In Berlin people talked of nothing else. 

In June they reached a fort of the inner circle of 
fortifications, three miles from the city; this was as 
near to the city as they ever got, for then the British 
began the battle of the Somme, which forced the Ger- 
mans to withdraw men from the Verdun front. 
Then, little by little, the French began to thrust them 
back, but not until August of 1917 did they regain the 
last of their original positions. 

The battle had lasted a year and six months. The 
losses on both sides were enormous. The cost to 
Germany was fully 500,000 men, and she had failed 



38 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

to achieve her purpose. At the end, France was 
stronger than before. Her great sacrifice had only 
strengthened her determination to go on with the war. 
The spirit of the army had upheld the nation, for the 
men who went into the trenches of Verdun knew what 
it was for which they fought. They wanted to end 
all wars that their children might not have to endure 
the things they endured. And France meant to fight 
until she had won the victory. 

There was one feature of this battle that made it 
different from all other battles of the war. That was 
General Petain's motor transport system. With Ger- 
man guns commanding the only railroad into Verdun, 
the French, at first, faced the very serious problem of 
supplies and ammunition. How were they ever 
going to feed the men and guns of such huge armies ? 
A single wagon road was left to them, of which only 
the extreme northern end, the end leading directly 
into Verdun, was endangered by German fire. It 
ran southward, in and out among the hills, for thirty 
miles, to the town of Bar-le-Duc. General Petain 
saw at once that the battle depended almost entirely 
on the use that could be made of this road, and he 
telephoned to Paris for all the trucks, busses, and 
motor cars that could be spared. Soon 1700 vehicles 
were on the way to Verdun. They were the first unit 
of one of the most remarkable organizations of the 
war. 

Traveling at all times was exceedingly difBcult. In 



MARSHAL PETAIN 39 

the first days of the battle, the road was covered with 
snow and ice. Later it was all but lost in mud, and 
the heavy trucks, crawling slowly up and down the 
hills, avoided overturning only with the greatest care. 
Not all of them did. Wrecks frequently occurred, 
for to the difficulties of the road were added the hard- 
ships endured by the drivers, who sometimes traveled 
for days without sleep or rest. 

Soon the road began to give way under the heavy 
and incessant traffic. General Petain saw that it 
would be necessary to rebuild it entirely. More 
trucks were sent for. They brought stone from the 
battlefield of the Marne, and ten thousand men began 
the work of converting an old country road into a 
broad, smooth highway. 

Meanwhile the train of vehicles never stopped. As 
the months passed, the numbers grew into the thou- 
sands. At night their lights resembled those of a 
long, curving, city street, so endlessly did one truck 
replace another. Usually they traveled in sections. 
Each section had its distinctive mark, such as a dia- 
mond or a four-leafed clover or the tri-color, and 
competed with the others for the honor of giving the 
best service. Going to Verdun, they carried troops, 
ammunition, bread, and meat ; returning, they brought 
the wounded. Day and night, for month after month, 
the rumble of their wheels could be heard all along- 
the road. It drowned the noise of even the most vio- 
lent bombardment. 



40 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Another feature of the Verdun battle was the work 
of the airplanes. Until then airplanes had not been 
used very much for fighting; their work had been 
chiefly observation. What fighting there had been 
was of the '' single combat " kind. Now the battle 
squadron came into being — a formation of ten to 
twenty planes which fought as a single unit. 

Before the battle opened, the Germans sent all their 
best aviators to Verdun, and for the first ten days they 
hung over the French lines from daylight to dark, 
making observations and directing the fire of the ar- 
tillery. The French, lacking planes, were unable to 
stop them. 

When General Petain came he sent an immediate 
call for aviators. His call was answered by a group 
of young men, many of whom were afterwards num- 
bered among the most famous aviators of France. 
Their work was to destroy enemy observation bal- 
loons, to drive off German airmen from the Verdun 
road, to bomb German supply depots, and to keep con- 
stant watch over the roads along which German 
supply trains must travel. Here, too, for the first 
time in the war, they took part in the infantry fight- 
ing; that is, they swooped down over the enemy lines 
and dropped bombs directly on the troops. The re- 
sulting panic and disorder often checked an attack. 

Among these Verdun aviators was a small group 
of Americans. They had formed through their own 
efforts an aviation unit, called the '' Lafayette Esca- 
drille." It was in return for the aid Lafayette had 



MARSHAL PETAIN 41 

given America that they had come to offer their serv- 
ices to France. The task which fell to them was not 
easy. It was to guard the Verdun road. Day and 
night they were in the air. Combats were frequent. 
The fighting was severe and many gave their lives 
before the work they had undertaken was accom- 
plished. 



Some miles behind the lines at Verdun was a village 
called Souilly, a tiny hamlet of stone houses, built for 
the most part along a single street, which was no other 
than the Verdun road. From the muddy courtyard 
of the Town Hall, motor cars came and went all day, 
and a sentry stood guard at the door. Upstairs, in 
a bare room, were General Petain's headquarters. 
That is, here was his office, but the place where he 
thought out his problems was a peasant's cottage near 
by, in which he lived. It was not a palace, this home 
of General Petain. His room was small and wholly 
lacking in comforts. He wrote by an oil lamp, which 
also provided the only heat. For furniture there were 
a bed, a table, and a few chairs. But, plain and bare 
as it was, it suited the general, for he believed that 
discomforts and hardships were a necessary part of 
one's training. If they were lacking in the conditions 
of his life, he usually invented them. Once, it is said, 
he stood for hours in the rain, bareheaded and without 
a coat, to give his soldiers a lesson in endurance and 
keeping cheerful. 

At the time of the Verdun battle General Petain 



42 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

was fifty-eight years old. He is not so tall as Gen- 
eral Pershing but above medium height, straight- 
shouldered, in appearance entirely the soldier. It is 
said that he forgets to count the number of times he 
tries to do a thing, and his blue eyes express this 
resoluteness. He wears the plain blue-gray uniform 
of the French army, with three silver stars on the 
sleeve and cap. At Verdun it was a stained and faded 
uniform, from having been worn as much out of doors 
in all kinds of weather as in his office at General Head- 
quarters. 

When it became known that it was General Petain 
who had saved Verdun, people demanded to know who 
he was and why he had not been heard of before. 

There was not much to be learned for asking, only 
a few brief stories connected with his career. Gen- 
eral Petain, it seems, did not enjoy being a hero. He 
was quite bored by the attention he received. When 
the newspapers sent photographers to take his picture, 
he refused to see them. He asked the censor to omit 
all mention of his name. He never talked of himself, 
and he would not permit others to do so. Neverthe- 
less, the story of his career, uneventful in itself, helped 
people to understand the man whose personality, like 
that of General Joff re in 1914 and that of General Foch 
in 1918, met the crisis of the hour. His full name is 
Henri Philippe Petain. He was born in 1858 near 
St. Omer, in the extreme north of France, and edu- 
cated in the military school of St. Cyr. 

France has several national military schools, which 



MARSHAL PETAIN 43 

are very much alike, save that each specializes in cer- 
tain branches of the service. St. Cyr is a training 
school for infantry, cavalry, and marine officers. It 
is near the city of Versailles, not far from Paris. 

A student may not enter St. Cyr before he is sev- 
enteen nor after he is twenty-two, unless he is an en- 
listed man in the army. Examinations are held pub- 
licly, like those of the Ecole Polytechnique. They 
cover many of the same subjects and some that are 
more advanced. As at the Ecole Polytechnique, also, 
students are divided into companies, which form a 
battalion. The battalion of St. Cyr, from the per- 
fection of its drill, has become the first battalion of 
France and marches at the head in army reviews. 

Discipline at St. Cyr is very strict. Officers have 
the authority of police and punishments range from 
the loss of one's holidays to imprisonment in the mil- 
itary prison at Paris. This discipline, together with 
the military training, had a pronounced effect on the 
mind of Henri Petain. He seems to have set himself 
deliberately the task of self-mastery. Day after day 
he persevered in gymnastic exercises that he might 
develop a strong physique. He spent much time out 
of doors. He rigorously excluded from his personal 
habits anything that endangered his health. He also 
studied hard and read widely. In fact, his chief in- 
terest in maintaining his health was that it might con- 
tribute to the use he meant to make of his mind. 

The habits acquired at St. Cyr he never relaxed. 
At sixty he set aside a half hour every morning for 



44 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

physical exercises, as he had done at seventeen. He 
took long walks. Sometimes he ran for miles. He 
fenced as well as any of his young officers. He even 
leaped parapets, to the' great admiration of his men. 

In the same way he was able to control the energies 
of his mind. Once, during the operations at Verdun, 
when the situation was particularly serious, he worked 
at his desk continuously for five days and nights, with 
hardly a sign of fatigue. 

When he had finished at St. Cyr, he was assigned as 
a lieutenant to a famous regiment of the army. At 
thirty-two he became a captain and soon after this he 
entered the Superior War School at Paris to prepare 
himself to become a general staff officer. His work 
in the Superior War School revealed that he had a 
mind of his own, that he was, in fact, developing a 
system of tactics quite different from any taught in 
the school or used in the French army. There is a 
story that he usually studied subjects in which no ex- 
aminations were held. 

Later, when Petain himself became an instructor 
at the Superior War School, his theories began to at- 
tract attention. One of them was that a battle is 
nothing more than an expression of the commanding 
general's mind. If one understands how such a mind 
habitually acts, one can know approximately what will 
take place on the battlefield. 

In support of this theory Petain prepared a course 
of lectures which were scientific studies of the minds 
of great generals. They were masterly lectures and 



MARSHAL PETAIN 45 

they brought his name to the notice of military men all 
over Europe. The King of Bulgaria conferred a dec- 
oration of merit on him for these same lectures, but 
Petain did not enjoy being famous then any more than 
he did after Verdun. He courteously thanked the 
king and slipped the medal into his pocket. 

In 1914 he commanded the Fourth Brigade at St. 
Omer, near the place of his birth. He was about to 
retire as a colonel, when the war called him into active 
service. At Charleroi, Belgium, he flung his brigade 
against superior German forces and covered the re- 
treat of the Fifth French Army. In the latter part 
of August he was promoted to the command of the 
Sixth Infantry Division. Although he was now a 
major-general, he still wore on his cap the five stripes 
denoting the rank of colonel. He had not had time to 
replace them with stars. 

The Sixth Division had been fighting and retreat- 
ing all the way from the Belgian frontier to the Marne. 
It had suffered heavy losses. Most of the officers had 
been killed. The men were disheartened and bewil- 
dered. Disorder prevailed everywhere and no one 
seemed to know what to do. Then Petain came, and 
a few days later this broken and disheartened division 
was fighting splendidly in the battle of the Marne. 

At Montceau-les-Provins he conducted an attack 
which was one of the first of this great battle. Al- 
ways careful of his men, he insisted that the first part 
of the battle be fought with shells. Then, after a 
long and heavy bombardment, he ordered the advance. 



46 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The infantry was to move forward to the little village 
of Saint-Bon and occupy the hills beyond. But the 
Germans, aware of the coming attack, were covering 
the crest of these hills with a barrage of large shells 
such as Petain's men had never experienced before. 
They hesitated. Petain saw that they were afraid. 
Quickly taking the lead, he marched ahead of them, 
across the fields, with an even, unhurried step, until he 
reached the village of Saint-Bon. This was to be his 
post of command and here he remained all day, direct- 
ing and instructing while shells fell everywhere 
around him. To see him there, cool and fearless, 
though he presented so clearly a target for German 
gunners, restored the confidence of the men. They 
took the heights of Saint-Bon. 

One of his officers, writing of this incident, tells of 
the efifect it had upon the troops : 

*To us who had just passed through the terrible 
days since the 22d of August, who had retreated 
with hearts of anguish and without rest, day or night, 
and who felt that on this day we fought for the des- 
tiny of the country, this march in advance of troops, 
cool, resolute, straight toward the objective, seemed to 
have in it something symbolic of greatness, and we 
felt in our hearts hope and the certainty of victory." 

In May, 1915, Petain, now in command of the 33d 
Corps, was given the task of breaking the German line 
near the town of Carency in Artois. He was given 
three days in which to do it. Some thought it could 
not be done at all. Petain, however, was not of that 



MARSHAL PETAIN 47 

Opinion. He went about it in his usual systematic 
way, instructing each officer what he was to do, per- 
sonally inspecting all preparations. He always took 
plenty of time to prepare for an attack, but, when the 
moment came, he struck like lightning. 

It was the morning of the 9th of May that he struck 
at Carency. The 33d Corps, a perfect piece of mech- 
anism, all parts working together, pierced the German 
line, and took Carency in three hours instead of three 
days. Petain sent back word to headquarters to send 
reserves, that he had broken through. The answer 
came back that he must be mistaken; no one could 
have broken through in that time. And so, for lack 
of reserves, this attack, w^hich was to have begun an 
offensive movement along the whole line, resulted 
merely in a local victory. The 33d Corps, however, 
had taken 10,000 prisoners and 30 cannon. It was 
this success that brought Petain the command of the 
Second Army. 

His promotion was, perhaps, the most rapid of any 
in the French army. In less than three years he rose 
from the rank of colonel to that of commander-in- 
chief. How had it happened, people asked? If he 
possessed unusual qualities, why had he remained an 
obscure colonel until the Great War ? The answer was 
in the character of Petain himself. '' He has a hard 
tooth," the French say, meaning that, if he believes 
himself right, he goes on his way regardless of conse- 
quences. And one thing he believed before all others 
was that politics should have nothing to do with the 
army. 



48 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Until 1911 politics had a great deal to do with the 
French army. Consequently the opportunity for 
which Petain was so well prepared with his scientific 
knowledge and his exceptional qualities of leadership 
did not come until Verdun. 

It was Verdun that made Petain — a battle based 
on science and marvelously thought out. He left 
nothing to chance. No detail was too small to be 
overlooked by him. Not only did he instruct his of- 
ficers what to do in the first, the second, even the third 
instance, but he had a way of dropping in unexpect- 
edly to see how his instructions were being carried 
out. He often paid visits to his officers in the front 
line trenches, recklessly exposing himself to the enemy 
fire. 

He would rush to and fro from the trenches in an 
automobile at breakneck speed, for speed was one of 
the things he particularly believed in. During one 
part of the battle he is reported to have used up twelve 
chauffeurs in as many weeks. One of them said: '' I 
don't mind taking my chances of being killed in the 
trenches, but to drive for General Petain is to ask for 
death." 

He is not a comrade with his men, as is General 
Joffre, but "they trust him," as an officer once said, 
''because he sees so clearly." 

Like many great generals, he is plain. To meet 
him walking in the street of some cantonment, dressed 
in a soldier's top-coat, one might easily mistake him 
for one of his own poilus, except that he is nearly 



MARSHAL PETAIN 49 

always alone. He goes silently about his work with 
never a trace of emotion. He is careful. That is 
why his men trust him so much. And he is daring. 
That is why they admire him so greatly. 

Picture a body of troops on the march. They have 
just come from the trenches of Verdun and are on 
their way to their rest billets. But it is a long way, 
they are tired, their packs are heavy, and they march 
with dry throats. In the distance they see an auto- 
mobile approaching at full speed. 

" A general staff car," someone remarks. " It is 
going to bury us in dust." And all eyes look resent- 
fully toward it. Suddenly it slows down, almost to 
the pace of the marching column, and the men just 
have time to recognize its occupant, when it turns 
around and rapidly disappears down the road over 
which it came. Petain, having cast a brief glance at 
these troops, for what purpose no one knows, is re- 
turning to his maps. But they, tired as they are, 
straighten up to the last man and stand at salute. It 
is a mere incident, but it shows the relation between 
Petain and his men. 

When the battle of Verdun at last came to an end 
in August of 1917 and the armies of the Crown Prince 
had been driven far to the north, a simple ceremony 
to commemorate the victory took place in the Place 
d'Armes, the same square which was to have been the 
scene of surrender. The people of Verdun now came 
back to pay their respects to the man '* who had 
wrested the victorv from the Germans," and to the 



50 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

army whose heroism had upheld the courage of the 
nation. 

On May 15th General Petain had been made com- 
mander-in-chief of the French armies, but now the 
government conferred on him and on the troops which 
had won the final advance its highest gift, the cross 
of the Legion of Honor. 

Before President Poincare and General Petain all 
the regiments of that last victory passed in review. 
Rain fell in torrents, but it only served to make the 
ceremony more impressive. With the band playing 
the Marseillaise, and the tattered regimental flags 
caught up by the wind and borne proudly unfurled 
above the heads of the mud-covered men, it seemed 
not the army alone but the spirit of France that passed 
in review. France had endured. France would en- 
dure until the end. That was the message she sent 
through President Poincare to General Petain and to 
his officers and men. 

''Count on me," she said, ''as I count on you and 
on your soldiers. Together we shall fight to the final 
victory. Together we shall work to establish on in- 
destructible foundations the reign of peace and the 
sovereignty of God." 

This ceremony marked the end of a great chapter 
of the war; the occasion itself was to mark the begin- 
ning of another. Standing beside General Petain, 
President Poincare, and the government officials was 
a group of American officers. The French people 
greeted them with a cry of " Long live America " 



MARSHAL P^TAIN 51 

when they recognized General Pershing and his staff. 
Four months before, America had come into the war, 
but it was not merely because she was now the ally 
of France that General Pershing had been invited to 
be present at this ceremony, but because America had 
shared in the battle of Verdun itself. 

At the outbreak of the war many American boys 
had left their homes and colleges to offer their serv- 
ices to France. They had driven ambulances and 
trucks for nve cents a day. They had fought with 
the Foreign Legion in some of the most severe engage- 
ments. They had formed and maintained the Lafay- 
ette Escadrille. Some had been killed, many had 
been wounded, and many stood now in the ranks of 
the regiments honored for bravery. Compared with 
the vast armies engaged in this great battle, their 
number was very small, but it is a fact of which Amer- 
ica must always be proud that Americans were among 
those who ''barred the road to Verdun to the Ger- 
mans." 

The withdrawal of Russia from the war in 1916 
had released the German armies of the eastern 
front, and General Petain saw clearly the numbers 
the Allies some day would have to face. His fore- 
sight was again to save France. For fifteen months 
he worked constantly at building up his reserves. In 
the spring of 1918, when the German drive came, it 
was Petain's reserves that held the line, and it was 
with Petain's reserves that Foch struck back in July. 



52 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Though Marshal Foch commanded the AlHed 
armies, Petain remained commander-in-chief of the 
French armies until the end of the war. 

On the 11th of November, 1918, an armistice, or 
temporary truce, was signed. Among other things, 
it provided that the French should occupy Alsace and 
Lorraine. Probably no other condition of peace was 
so dear to the hearts of the French people as this, that 
the lost provinces should be returned to them. And 
as for the people of Alsace and Lorraine, since 1871, 
they had never ceased to hope for the day when they 
would be French again. During the war they had 
suffered cruelly for their sympathy with the cause of 
France. Fined, imprisoned, tortured, many of them 
killed, they had borne their trials with courage and 
patience, never doubting the final victory. And now 
the French army under General Petain was marching 
toward Metz, the capital city of Lorraine. 

It was the afternoon of the 19th of November. 
For days Metz had been in a tumult of excitement and 
preparation. The French flag, resurrected from its 
long concealment, flew again over the houses and the 
public buildings. The signs of shops and even some 
of the names of the proprietors had changed almost 
over night from German to French. French news- 
papers and magazines appeared suddenly on the news- 
stands as if by magic. Ever3^one wore the tricolor, 
everyone smiled. It was the happiest day Metz had 
known in nearly fifty years. 

The streets and squares were crowded with people. 



MARSHAL PETAIN 53 

They had waited since morning, eagerly expectant, 
talking of nothing but of what the day was to bring. 
Airplanes circling overhead, swooped down now and 
then and dropped hundreds of tiny French flags. 
Then, above the noisy droning of the planes, there 
came from the distance the sound of trumpets and — 
people could hardly believe their ears — the Marche 
Lorraine ! 

In a few minutes the army was in sight, long lines 
of men in strange uniforms of gray-blue, first the cav- 
alry, then General Petain with his officers, then the 
infantry and artillery with their battle pennants. 

General Petain rode a white horse. He had, on 
that very day, been made a Marshal of France. With 
General Joif re and General Foch he now ranked high- 
est in the army. As he rode into the square before 
the cathedral, a shout went up that drowned even the 
noise of the airplanes and the sound of the marching 
army. ''Vive Petain! Vive la France!" It came 
from the heart, this welcome of Lorraine. Before a 
statue of Marshal Ney, a French general under Napo- 
leon, Petain reviewed his troops, surrounded by his 
officers. The crowds surged forward, breaking the 
lines. Everyone wanted to see Petain. 

Then, as the troops marched by, each regiment with 
its battle flags, the people forgot Petain for the mo- 
ment to cheer the men who had won back their liber- 
ties. For two hours the lines moved endlessly on, 
through the cathedral square, up the street to the bar- 
racks which the Germans had so recently left. 



54 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Nor did the celebration end when the city had been 
occupied by the army. At night fireworks and star 
shells, sent up from the French lines, continually 
flashed the message of victory against the dark sky, 
while processions of young people paraded the streets, 
singing French songs and pausing now and then to 
shout again the words which had given them the cour- 
age to endure, ''Vive la France!" Joyousness had 
returned to the old city of Metz, for Lorraine was 
French again. 

REFERENCES 

UAnnee de Verdun, Joseph Reinach. 

General Petain, U Illustration, May 12, 1917. 

Petain, Current Opinion, June, 1917. 

Defender of Verdun, Alden Brooks, Collier's, April 22, 1916. 

Some French Fighters, Charles Dawbarn, Fortnightly, June, 
1916. 

La Bataille de Verdun, Henry Bidou, Revue de Deux Mondes, 
May, 1916. 

Battle for Verdun as France Saw It, Frank Simonds, Review 
of Reviews, May, 1916. 

Battle of Verdun, L'lllustration, May 11, 1916. 

Second Week at Verdun, Independent, March 13, 1916. 

Great German Attack on Verdun, Current History Magazine, 
Oct., 1917. 

Vineyard of Red Wine, H. Sheehan, Atlantic, August, 1916. 

How American Aviators Saved Verdun, Current History Mag- 
azine, July, 1917. 

An American Ambulance in the Verdun Attack, F. H. Gailor, 
Living Age, Aug. 12, 1916. 

Revue des Annees de Verdun, L'lllustration, Aug. 20, 1917. 

Petain Enters Metz, Current History Magazine, Dec, 1918. 



III. MARSHAL FOCH 

On the 2d of October, 1851, the boy who was to 
become the commander-in-chief of the greatest army 
of the world, was born in the old city of Tarbes in 
southern France. He was born into a family that 
had already won military honors, for his grandfather 
Dupre had served under Napoleon and had been deco- 
rated by him. 

There were four children in the Foch family, three 
boys and a girl. Ferdinand was the second son. His 
father was the general secretary of the Department of 
the High Pyrenees, of which Tarbes was the chief 
city. 

Ferdinand did not go to school until he was eleven 
years old, but was taught at home. A part of his edu- 
cation had to do with the wars in which his grand- 
father had fought. He knew all the stories of the 
campaigns and Napoleon became his great hero. 
When he was twelve, he decided that he would read 
the entire history of Napoleon's empire. There were 
several volumes, and politics made rather dull reading, 
but the stories of the battles made up for the dull 
parts. 

In the two years that he attended school at Tarbes 
he made no unusual record of any kind. He had a 
good head for mathematics, and once he won an "hon- 

55 



56 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

orable mention" for religious knowledge, Latin, his- 
tory, and geography, but he took no prizes for schol- 
arship. 

The holidays of the Foch children were often spent 
at the home of their paternal grandfather. Grand- 
father Foch was a man of some wealth and had built 
himself a substantial house in Valentine, a village in 
the foothills of the Pyrenees. 

On one of the hills not far from the house was a 
chapel to which people from all the country around 
came on pilgrimages. Ferdinand's favorite walk 
was to this place. From the top of the hill could be 
seen upon one side the wide valley of the Garonne 
River, and upon the other the great white peaks of 
the Pyrenees. These holidays came to an end, how- 
ever, when Ferdinand was thirteen, for that year his 
father moved away from Tarbes. 

At sixteen he entered the college of St. Michel in 
the village of St. Etienne, near Lyons, where the Foch 
family was then living. Two years later, when he 
passed his final examintions at St. Michel, his general 
education was finished. He had now to decide what 
he wanted to do and begin special studies for his 
career. 

His mind was already made up. Like his grand- 
father Dupre, he would become an officer. In 
Metz there was a preparatory school. This was 
in the days before the Franco-Prussian war, when 
Metz was a city of France. Ferdinand was in his 
nineteenth year when he journeyed to Metz and en- 



MARSHAL FOCH 57 

tered St. Clement's, and it was the first time he had 
ever attended school away from home. 

The first year passed uneventfully and, when the 
summer holidays came, he went home to St. Etienne, 
expecting to return for the opening of the new term 
in August. But on the 19th of July, 1870, came the 
war, which ended the studies of so many French boys 
that summer. In August, when St. Clement's should 
have opened, it was serving as a military hospital and 
the Germans were marching on Paris. 

Ferdinand remained at home until September, when 
he was accepted as a private in the army. For the 
next four months he worked hard at drilling, but he 
did not get any nearer to the war than the barracks 
of his home town. 

In January of 1871 the war ended, and the follow- 
ing month found Ferdinand back at St. Clement's, 
but what changes the war had made! When he had 
left six months before, the tricolor of France had 
waved from the old fortress; now it was the German 
flag. Arriving at school, he found German sentries 
on guard at the door. German soldiers were quar- 
tered in the college. They were a part of the army of 
occupation which remained on French soil until the 
last penny of the indemnity was paid. 

For six months, while he studied to become a French 
officer, Ferdinand shared quarters with the German 
army. And the next summer, when he went to Nancy 
to take his examinations, he found the Germans there 
also. 



58 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Nancy was the headquarters of the German First 
Army Corps, and the commanding general took de- 
Hght in ordering the band to parade through the city 
and play military retreats as a daily reminder to the 
inhabitants that France had been defeated. Ferdi- 
nand wrote his examinations to the sound of this music 
and he never forgot it. 

Forty-two years later he returned to Nancy to take 
command of the 20th Corps of Lorraine. The city 
was gaily decorated for the occasion. The tricolor 
flew from every house. If any of the inhabitants re- 
mained who had lived through the days of German oc- 
cupation, they had probably forgotten all about the 
German general's music to which they had listened 
nearly half a century ago. 

But Ferdinand Foch had not forgotten. His first 
act upon taking command was to order out the bands 
of six regiments to play the most stirring marches of 
victory. Into every corner of the city his bands went. 
As night came on flaring torches lighted their way, 
and the people followed, cheering and shouting, *'Vive 
la France!" It was a revelry of music and patriot- 
ism that many will never forget. 

In November of 1871 Ferdinand went to Paris to 
enter the Ecole Polytechnique. In ordinary times 
this would have been a happy event, but the days fol- 
lowing the war were some of the saddest in the his- 
tory of the school. 

After the signing of peace with Germany, France 
was torn by civil war. The poor people, who had suf- 



MARSHAL FOCH 59 

fered most from the war and who could obtain neither 
food nor work in the days which immediately fol- 
lowed, set up a new government in Paris, called the 
Commune. It lasted nearly two months, when the 
national troops took th'e city. Then followed a week 
of terrible fighting, in which shells fell upon the Ecole 
Polytechnique, where the Communists had taken ref- 
uge. Finally, when the school was captured, the 
Communists were seized and lined up before a firing 
squad in the boys' recreation court. 

All of these things had happened before Ferdinand 
Foch came to Paris, but the evidence still remained. 
Until the damaged buildings could be repaired, the 
boys were obliged to seek quarters elsewhere. The 
war had also left its effect upon the boys themselves. 
Not a single festivity of any kind w^as held at the 
school during all that year because " no one had any 
heart for amusements." 

One of Foch's comrades at this time was Joseph 
Jofifre. For nearly a year these two were students 
together at the Polytechnique. Jofifre graduated in 
September of 1872 and went to the School of Applied 
Artillery at Fontainebleau. Six months later Foch 
followed him. He was one of the students of high 
standing who had been given a commission before his 
course was finished because the new army was in great 
need of officers. 

He finished third in his class at the School of Ap- 
plied Artillery and then returned, a lieutenant, to the 
garrison at Tarbes. Why had he chosen Tarbes, his 



6o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

friends asked ? His family no longer lived there and 
Tarbes could not possibly offer any advancement to a 
young officer. 

It was characteristic of Foch, however, that he 
knew what he wanted. He had just graduated from a 
school of artillery. Later on he meant to enter a 
cavalry school, but for the present he would get what 
cavalry practice he could in the garrison which af- 
forded the finest horses in France, for the country 
around Tarbes is famous for its Arabian horses. 
Having decided to become a general staff officer, one 
who would help to plan for the defense of the nation, 
he would need to understand all branches of the ser- 
vice. 

After two years at Tarbes, he entered a cavalry 
school and from there passed to the 10th regiment of 
artillery at Rennes in Brittany. He was twenty-seven 
years old now and a captain. 

Brittany was to become his new home. Near the 
city of Morlaix he purchased an estate. The house — 
an old manor house of gray stone — looks across a 
sunny meadow to a fine woodland. It was the wood- 
land, above all, which had attracted Foch, for he loves 
trees. All his life he has studied them; next to war 
he knows more about them than anything else. His 
chief pleasure is to ride through his forests seeing 
what improvements he can make, and now that the 
war is over, he desires only to return to Brittany and 
plant more trees. 

At home he does not use a motor car ; he prefers his 



MARSHAL FOCH 6i 

horses. A favorite, named Croesus, is nearly always 
with him. It is one of the fine Arabian horses from 
the comitry near Tarbes. 

Although Foch was a captain when he went to Brit- 
tany and had spent many years at school, he had not 
yet reached the goal he had set for himself, and he 
began to study now to prepare himself to enter the 
Superior War School at Paris. This school prepares 
officers for the High Command. 

He finished his course at the Superior War School 
fourth on the lists. He had made a record, both as a 
student and an officer, a record which was to lead, 
eventually, to his being recalled to the War School as 
Professor of History and Tactics. Foch was forty- 
four when he returned to Paris to take up this work, 
and it is as a teacher that his career really begins. 

The professorship which he held was counted the 
most important one in the training of officers. Stu- 
dents always looked forward to the course in Tactics, 
and when Lieutenant Colonel Foch was announced as 
the new instructor, they were impatient to see and hear 
him. 

They were not disappointed. Young officers who 
attended his classes never forgot him. He was a 
small man, so slender that he appeared almost frail, 
but no one doubted his energy who heard him speak. 
He must have talked to officers in his classes much as 
he talked to them at headquarters. "Have you a 
clear idea in your head? No? Then go away and 
form one." Exactness he demanded first and last. 



62 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

During the years that he was connected with the 
Superior War School, both as a professor and, later, 
as its head, he trained many hundreds of officers. 
When the war came, nearly all of these officers held 
high positions. Thus, while Joffre was organizing 
and equipping the new army, Foch was furnishing it 
with brains. This was his great work up to August, 
1914. 

So little did France expect a war in the summer of 
1914 that, on the 18th of July, Foch asked for a leave 
of absence to visit his home in Brittany. He was a 
man of sixty-three at this time, commanding general 
of the 20th Corps, with headquarters at Nancy. 

He had looked forward to his holiday particularly, 
for there was to be a family reunion. His grandchil- 
dren, with whom he loved to play, would be there. 
There would be rides through the forests and excur- 
sions to the sea, while the business of conducting 
manoeuvers was forgotten. His two sons-in-law, both 
captains in the army, had been granted leave at the 
same time. The only disappointment was that his 
son. Lieutenant Germain Foch, must remain with his 
regiment. It was the last time the Foch family was 
to come together. The war was soon to take the son 
and one of the sons-in-law. 

While General Foch was enjoying his holiday, not 
knowing what was to come, Germans from all over 
France were flocking home to join the army. On 
July 25th 12,000 Germans left the city of Nancy alone, 



MARSHAL FOCH 63 

having completed all the preparations for war which 
the German government had entrusted to them. Dur- 
ing the month of July they had been very busy in 
Nancy. They had visited all the public buildings and 
many private homes, especially those with high roofs, 
offering to install a wireless system at the very cheap 
price of $34.00. It would be so interesting, they 
said, to get the exact time every day from the Eiffel 
Tower. 

On July 26th a telegram recalled General Foch to 
Nancy to prepare for the defense of the city. By the 
last of the month the German plan was clear. It was 
to send troops through Belgium and through Alsace 
to encircle the French army. That it did not succeed 
w^as due to the French right wing, of which the 20th 
Corps was a part. 

'' The best means of defense is to attack," said Foch. 
Therefore, wdth an advance guard of the 20th Corps^ 
he left Nancy on the 15th of August and marched into 
Germany. When the men reached the frontier, they 
dug up the red, white, and black posts that marked the 
boundary and crossed the line, singing the Marseil- 
laise. 

The fighting which followed lasted from the 19th 
to the 26th of August and ended in a German retreat. 
This was not included in the plan and considerably 
upset the schedule. Every effort was made to keep 
it a secret from the people and from the German 
armies in Belgium. In the end, however, the French 
army of Lorraine was obliged to fall back to keep its 



64 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




&'». If J"r..«^^**^^SMP 



Marshal Foch 



MARSHAL FOCH 6$ 

unity with the armies of the center and left, which 
were retreating toward the Marne. 

On the 29th of August, while General Foch was 
watching one of his regiments attack a German out- 
post, he received an order to hand over the command 
of the 20th Corps to another general and come to 
Chalons-on-the-Marne to consult with General Joffre. 

Arriving- at Chalons, he found that he was to have 
command of the Ninth Army, a new army which 
Joffre was then forming. 

The Ninth Army was " new " only in name. Most 
of the units had been taken from other points in the 
line. Everything was in confusion. Some of the 
officers did not know where their units were. The men 
had been fighting and retreating for days and were 
worn out. The only roads over w^iich troops could 
be moved were crowded with refugees fleeing from 
the invaded districts. 

On the third day after he had taken command. Gen- 
eral Foch was told in a telegram from Jofifre that the 
New Ninth Army, this tired, disorganized army, would 
occupy the position of honor in the coming battle, the 
center, against which the Germans were to throw their 
full strength. 

On a line that ran from the village of Charleville 
twenty-five miles in a southeasterly direction to the 
village of Sommesous, the Ninth Army took up its 
position. For eleven miles along the western end the 
line bordered upon the marshes of Saint Gond. Once 
a lake, much of this marsh land had been drained and 



66 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

turned into pasture, but there still remained wide 
stretches of marsh, " with shallow pools and thickets 
of brown rushes." 

The Saint Gond marshes, which were to become a 
part of the battleground of the Marne, were known 
quite as well to the Germans as to the French. For 
years the Germans had been visiting them under one 
pretext or another. Sometimes they came to hunt 
wild ducks. Sometimes they traveled through the 
country selling fertilizers to the farmers. A few had 
settled in the villages and remained as cheesemakers 
and shepherds. Every foot of ground had been care- 
fully examined and mapped. 

On the morning of the 5th of September, villagers 
saw the French army retreating toward the south. 
In the afternoon they saw it returning, saw the men 
dragging batteries up the slopes of the hills that bor- 
dered the southern edge of the marshes. Soon whole 
divisions poured into the towns, traveling northwest. 
About four o'clock the batteries on the hills opened 
fire; then, from somewhere to the northwest, German 
shells began to fall on the villages. There was not 
much fighting, however, and by evening all was quiet 
again. The only sound was the cry of wild ducks 
among the rushes. 

At six o'clock the next morning, Sunday, September 
6th, General Foch established his headquarters in a 
chateau near the village of Pleurs. Along the front 
everything was still quiet. 

It was some time between seven and eight o'clock 



MARSHAL FOCH 67 

that, suddenly, a great roar broke the silence. Smoke 
clouds began to roll across the marshes and flashes of 
flame streaked the sky. The army had just received 
Joffre's order to attack and every battery had opened 
fire. 

The 77th regiment, holding the southern border of 
Saint Gond, now pushed forward, only to be driven 
back by the Germans into the hills still farther to the 
south. What happened to this regiment had hap- 
pened to oiher units all along the line. On the even- 
ing of the first day of battle the Ninth Army had 
everywhere retreated. 

Looking toward the marshes that night, the men of 
the 77th saw one of the border villages in flames and 
black shadows moving around it. The Germans were 
dancing to celebrate the victory that had turned a 
French attack into a retreat. 

The night was intensely hot and the men suffered 
from thirst. They were to suffer still more, for this 
w^as only the beginning of the battle. Hunger, too, 
was to be added to their misery. For three days they 
tasted no food except the raw beets which they found 
in the fields. 

The next day, September 7th, the German attack 
was stronger. Foch's army, from the beginning, had 
been outnumbered. He had against him some of the 
best German divisions, the Saxons and the Prussian 
Guards, for the German plan was to break the French 
line here at the center. 

However, the line held that day and even advanced 



68 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

a little, but so strong was the German attack that It 
led Foch to remark: "They are trying to throw us 
back with such fury that I'm sure things are going 
badly for them elsewhere, and they are seeking com- 
pensation." 

He was right. North of Paris things were going 
badly. Von Kluck was retreating. 

It was the following day, September 8th, that disas- 
ter befell the Ninth Army. At three o'clock in the 
morning the Saxons rose out of the darkness and 
attacked the French with such fury that the whole 
line was driven back. At nine o'clock they stormed 
the village of Sommesous and broke through. The 
situation was so serious that General Foch left head- 
quarters and went to the battle front. There he found 
everything in confusion. Regiments were badly 
confused. Many of the men did not know where 
they belonged. Guns and trucks were hurrying to- 
ward the rear, troops were falling back along every 
road amidst the crowds of villagers who had been 
driven from their homes by the attack. Officers 
everywhere were trying to rally their men. 

General Foch rode up to a Breton regiment just as 
it was preparing to make a stand. He knew the 
Bretons — they were men from his own province. 
Pointing toward the Germans, he said : " My boys, you 
must kill those fellows to hold them back." 

" We will, my general," was the cheery reply. 

By eleven o'clock, however, the Germans were in 
Fere Champenoise, the largest village in the battle 



MARSHAL FOCH 69 

area, and the right wing of the Ninth Army had fallen 
back four miles. This made it necessary for the cen- 
ter to fall back to keep in touch with the divisions that 
wxre retreating. The German thrust had also endan- 
gered Foch's headquarters, and he was obliged to 
move in the midst of battle to the village of Plancy, 
seven miles to the south. 

He knew what the Germans were trying to do. 
They had found the weak spot in his line and were 
throwing all their strength against it. If they could 
break through, they could yet roll up the whole west- 
ern half of the Allied army and win a decisive victory. 
Therefore they must not be allowed to break through, 
said Foch. The right wing must be supported. But 
with what? He had no reserves. Every man was 
engaged. 

It was at this moment, with the defeat of the nation 
facing him, that he sent his famous message to Joffre. 
'' My center is giving way. My right is retreating. 
The situation is excellent. I shall attack." 

Attack! Could an outnumbered and retreating 
army attack? The Germans were driving the French 
before them, as one writer has said, " like dead leaves 
before the wind." 

Serious as the situation was, however, this drive 
gave General Foch an opportunity, for, while the Ger- 
mans pressed the French back on the eastern half of 
the battle line, on the western half they had not been 
able to make any gains. Foch reasoned that the point 
where the two halves joined might be weakly guarded. 



70 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

If only he had men to throw against this weak point he 
might yet save the battle. There was but one way of 
getting men ; that was to take them from some other 
point of the line which was still holding. The success 
of the plan depended on keeping any knowledge of the 
movement of troops from the enemy. The risk was 
very great, but General Foch decided to take it. 

He sent an order to General Grosetti, commanding 
the 42d division, the best division in the line, to retire 
from his position and march to the village of Pleurs, 
where he would receive new orders. It was ten 
o'clock of the night of September 8th when the officer 
whom Foch had sent woke General Grosetti " from his 
sleep in the straw '' in a wretched farm building, and 
delivered the message. The general was astonished 
at the order but prepared at once to carry it out. 

The troops also were astonished, nor did they like 
being taken out of the line, for, until then, the 42d 
division had won most of the local victories of the 
battle. Why had they been ordered out and where 
were they being sent? Was the whole army re- 
treating? 

The day of disaster had ended in torrents of rain, 
but, notwithstanding the rain, villages were burning 
everywhere. When morning came the sky was still 
reddened from the fires. 

At daybreak of September 9th the German attacks 
began again, and once more Foch's right wing fell 
back. The battle was at the crisis. 

" Hold on till midday," word went to the 77th, 



MARSHAL FOCH 7 1 

which was still in action, '' till the 42d division ar- 
rives at Pleurs, and the battle is won." 

But at midday the 42d had not arrived. Two 
o'clock came and still there was no 42d. What had 
happened ? Had General Grosetti made a mistake and 
gone to some other place ? Foch sent messenger after 
messenger. No word came. The suspense was tell- 
ing on everybody except General Foch. He was un- 
disturbed. At the same time that he was despatching 
messengeis after his lost division, he was sending 
word to his defeated right that everything was going 
splendidly. 

It was four-thirty in the afternoon when the 42d 
was seen to sweep down the slopes toward Pleurs, the 
sun's last rays falling upon the head of General Gro- 
setti as he rode at the head of his troops. To the tired 
and anxious army in the valley below, its appearance 
was like a vision of victory. From that moment they 
believed the battle won. 

The call to arms sounded and the men, too over- 
joyed now to remember their weariness, prepared to 
advance. So many officers had been killed that many 
companies were commanded by sergeants and whole 
regiments went into battle without superior officers. 

At six o'clock that evening Foch gave the order 
for the attack. What the outcome would be he could 
not know for several hours. Having given the order, 
he took one of his staff officers with him and wxnt for 
a walk. On the walk he did not once speak of the 
war. 



72 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The day before, it will be remembered, the Prussian 
Guards had entered Fere Champenoise. Believing 
the battle won, they had proceeded at once to make 
merry. That afternoon and all the next day they 
held a fair. On the afternoon of September 9th, at 
the moment when the 42d division was about to hurl 
itself on the German flank, the merrymaking was 
at its height. A piano had been carried into the street 
and set up before the hotel, and benches and ammu- 
nition wagons made seats for the audience. "Offi- 
cers lolled in basket chairs on the pavement, smoking 
and drinking. Sword belts were unbuckled, haver- 
sacks thrown in heaps, rifles stacked against the 
wall." ' 

The war was forgotten. All afternoon the singing 
and dancing went on. But the victory which was 
being celebrated was not yet won, and at five o'clock 
a mounted officer came galloping into town, shouting 
an order as he passed. It was the order to retreat; 
the 42d division had been sighted by an airplane, 
and the Germans were trying to get away before dis- 
aster should befall them. 

The men snatched kits and rifles and were soon on 
the road. The retreat was conducted in good order. 
By six o'clock scarcely a German was left in Fere 
Champenoise. At nine the next morning the French 
entered the town. The tide of battle and of the war 
had turned. 

1 General Foch at the Marnc, Charles Le Goffic. 



MARSHAL FOCH 73 

Following the battle of the Marne, General Foch 
remained in Chalons until he was ordered north to 
Ypres in Belgium, where the Germans were preparing 
to take the channel cities of northern France/ Ypres 
was a battle in which all the Allies took part. On the 
northern end of the battle line, the Belgians were 
fighting for the little strip of country that still re- 
mained in their hands. The British held the center, 
while French divisions were scattered all along the 
line, a little " French cement," as General Foch re- 
marked, '' to stop up any holes the Germans might 
make." 

On the afternoon of October 4th General Foch 
received a telegram from Joffre, asking him to start 
at once for Belgium, and at ten that night he left 
Chalons by automobile. After spending three weeks 
with the French armies of the North, on the 24th of 
October he established his headquarters at Cassel, a 
little town situated on the top of a hill which over- 
looks all the plain of Flanders. Cassel is about eight- 
een miles south and west of Ypres. 

His office was in the old Town Hall, and here he 
spent the most of his time at work over his maps, a 
telephone at his side. Often he worked far into the 
night. He lived very simply in a house near by, and 
took his exercise in walking about the town, nearly 
always alone. 

The great battle for the channel cities had already 
begun when General Foch arrived at Cassel. On the 

1 For the British part in the First Battle of Ypres, see the biography 
of General Haig. 



74 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

20th of October the Germans had struck at the north- 
ern end of the Hne, which the Belgians held in front 
of the city of Dixmude. They struck so hard that the 
Belgians were obliged to use the last of their reserves. 
They could do no more. All the soil of Belgium 
except the tiny strip on which the Belgian army was 
now fighting was in German hands. What it meant 
to the Belgians to hold this strip no one understood 
better than General Foch. He went at once to the 
Belgian front. 

'' You must hold," he said to the general staff, ''you 
must hold, at whatever cost. I will send you my 
42d division." 

Then, seeing a map lying on the table, he traced a 
line across it. 

'' There you are," he added. " There is the line on 
which you can hold, the line of the railway from Nieu- 
port to Dixmude. I don't know how much good it is 
but it's an embankment. With a little water in front 
of it you are masters of the situation." 

The idea had come to him while he was speaking. 
Was there no way of flooding the plain? The Bel- 
gian officers, who, a few moments before, had despaired 
of saving their little corner of Belgium, now forgot 
all their troubles. They remembered that the plan of 
inundating the plain of Flanders had already been 
studied. The maps and papers must still be in exist- 
ence. 

Three days later Belgian engineers, working under 
fire, had filled in all of the openings in the embank- 



MARSHAL FOCH 75 

ment, and in four days more the flood gates were 
opened. The water, rising over the plain, flooded the 
German guns. Without the artillery the infantry 
could no longer hold its position. The Belgian army 
and the little strip of Belgian territory had been saved. 

Checked in their effort to break through at Dix- 
mude, the Germans next turned their attention to the 
British line before Ypres. Here again they met Gen- 
eral Foch. 

October 29th, the first day of that furious attack 
upon the British, found Foch at his headquarters in 
Cassel. In the evening the reports of the day's fight- 
ing began to come in. They were very unfavorable 
and Foch remained in his oflice late, thinking out ways 
of meeting the new danger. He knew that on this 
day the battle was only beginning, that the strongest 
attacks were yet to come. Having thought the prob- 
lem out, he sent for his motor car about midnight and 
started for the city of St. Omer, where Marshal 
French, commander-in-chief of the British army, had 
his headquarters. He arrived a little before one. 
Marshal French had gone to bed and had to be 
wakened. 

''Marshal, is your line broken?" were General 
Foch's first words. 

" Yes,'' replied Marshal French. 

" Have you any reserves ? " 

" None whatever." 

''Very well then," said Foch. "I give you mine. 
The hole must be stopped at once. If we let our line 



76 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

be pierced at a single point we are lost, because of the 
mass attacks of our enemy. I have eight battalions of 
the 32d division which Joffre is sending me. Take 
them and go forward." 

Marshal French rose and gripped General Foch's 
hand. ''Thanks," he said, ''you are giving me splen- 
did help." 

The two generals then worked out a plan for the 
next day. By two o'clock all orders had been tele- 
graphed and before daybreak the first trains bearing 
Foch's reserves had arrived behind the Ypres line, and 
the men were on their way to the front. 

In the spring of 1916 General Foch narrowly 
escaped being killed, not in battle as might be expected, 
but in an automobile accident. It was the time when 
the British and the French were preparing for their 
joint offensive — the battle of the Somme. Foch was 
retut-ning from a conference at the headquarters of 
the central French armies, and was driving along the 
river Marne near the city of Meaux. 

" Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms, not 
noticing the near approach of the car, stepped out to 
cross the road in front of it. The chauffeur, to avoid 
running over her, put on the brake sharply and pushed 
round the steering wheel. The car skidded and crashed 
into one of the roadside trees. Foch was hurt about the 
head, happily not very seriously, but seriously enough 
to be taken to the hospital at Meaux, where he was 
under the anxious care of the doctors for some days." * 

1 Marshal Ferdinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge. 



MARSHAL FOCH 77 

At the time no mention was made of the accident 
in the newspapers, lest it create a feeling of anxiety 
throughout France, such was the confidence of both 
the army and the French people in General Foch. 
President Poincare and General Joffre, however, 
quietly slipped away from Paris and paid a visit to 
the hospital at Meaux to make sure that this chief on 
whom so much depended was not seriously hurt. 

By the middle of June General Foch was at work 
again, preparing with General Haig for the great 
battle of July 1st. Of that twenty-five mile battle line 
from Albert to St. Quentin, the British held the 
northern half, the French, under General Foch, the 
southern. The many operations known as the battle 
of the Somme were to continue into the first months 
of 1917, but by the end of September, 1916, General 
Foch had been transferred to other work. 

He was sixty-five years old now, the age at which 
generals in the French army are placed on the retired 
list, but at such a time France could not possibly do 
without Foch. Therefore, he was to remain ''with- 
out limit of age " as long as his services should be 
needed. 

His new work was of a different kind from com- 
manding armies in the field. He was one of several 
officers of high rank chosen to make a special study 
of the military problems that might have to be met 
during the months to come. 

A_ year later, in the summer of 1917, General Foch's 
work came to light quite unexpectedly. That sum- 



78 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

mer the Austrians broke through the Italian lines and 
poured into the Venetian plain, taking thousands of 
guns and hundreds of thousands of prisoners. It was 
for just such a crisis as this that General Foch had 
prepared. Plans for sending French and British 
troops to the aid of the Italians had been made months 
before and, when the emergency came, the troops were 
immediately dispatched. General Foch himself went. 
In every crisis, with the exception of Verdun, he was 
to be found somewhere behind the lines, putting ob- 
stacles in the way of the Germans. When defeat 
seemed certain his mind could always think of a way 
out. Misfortunes were never too great to shake his 
confidence in victory. 

After the war ended a friend once spoke to him of 
the glory his services had brought him. 

'' Glory ? " said Foch. '' Never use that word to me. 
I have done my work as a soldier, but I deserve no 
more glory for it than if I had been a civilian and 
done my work as a civilian well." 

On Thursday, the 21st of March, 1918, the Ger- 
mans began their great drive which they called the 
"Emperor's Battle," or the ''battle of Peace," since 
it was to end the war. A half million men were 
hurled against the British that morning and there 
were waiting behind the lines as many more to take 
the places of those who fell. 

Day after day the Allies were forced back, across 
the battlefields of the Somme, whose capture had cost 



MARSHAL FOCH 79 

SO many months and so many lives. The situation 
was so grave that, on March 26th, five days after the 
battle began, a conference of statesmen and military 
leaders was held, and it was decided to place all of 
the Allied armies under one command. General Foch 
was the man chosen to be the commander-in-chief of 
this great army. 

Never before had a general commanded an army 
such as this. Including both the armies in the field 
and those in reserve, it numbered eleven million men. 

From that time the war became a great game be- 
tween General Foch and the German commander-in- 
chief, General Ludendorff, to see which could keep the 
largest number of reserves for the final victory. The 
German plan was to strike so hard that the Allies 
would have to use all of their men in defense, while 
General Foch's plan was to let the Germans strike as 
hard as they would, since the losses of the attacking 
army are always higher than those of an army of 
defense. 

Through April, May, and June the fighting went 
on. These were months of deepest anxiety to the 
Allied peoples, who did not know any more than the 
Germans knew the secret number of Foch's reserves. 
When would the Allies strike back? Why did they 
always fight outnumbered? Had they already used 
their reserves? 

General Foch alone was unmoved. To all these 
questions he merely replied that everything was going 
very well. Perhaps, after a time, it would go better. 



8o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The Germans were of the opinion that General 
Foch's reserves were gone. They did not believe that 
England had any more men, and they laughed at the 
idea of America's sending help across three thousand 
miles of ocean. They continued to push on, therefore, 
though the cost of their gains grew higher with each 
effort. By the end of June they had carved out a 
slice of territory one hundred fifty miles long and 
forty miles wide at the widest point. One last drive, 
they reasoned, and Paris and victory would be theirs. 

They began this last drive at a little past midnight 
on the night of July 14th. They had chosen the time 
most carefully. July 14th was the national holiday 
of France, and a great many troops would have gone 
to Paris to celebrate. They would strike at a moment 
when the French were off guard. 

But it happened that on the night of July 14th Gen- 
eral Foch sat in his office, his watch in his hand, wait- 
ing for the boom of the first gun to announce that the 
battle had begun. Through prisoners and spies he 
had learned of the latest German plan and the precise 
hour at which it was to be carried out. When, in the 
darkness of early morning, they hurled themselves on 
the French, they discovered that they had struck 
against a stone wall. In two or three places a few 
Germans managed to get across the river Marne, 
where they met the Americans and were promptly 
driven back. 

At the apex of the triangle of territory which the 
Germans had gained was the city of Chateau Thierry. 



MARSHAL FOCH 8i 

One side of the triangle ran eastward to the city of 
Rheims and it was along this line that the Germans 
had attacked. Another side ran north from Chateau 
Thierry to Soissons, and here something of great 
importance was about to happen. All the while that 
the Germans had been preparing to advance on Paris, 
General Foch only waited for the time when they 
should make the attempt in order to strike back. 

Behind the line from Chateau Thierry to Soissons 
were dense forests, which afforded a splendid screen 
from German airmen, and here General Foch had 
massed his army. To surprise the enemy was part 
of his plan and his secret was well kept. Not until 
9 P.M. on the night of the 17th was the order sent 
out to junior officers to advance at dawn the next day. 

In most battles of the war an attack had been pre- 
ceded by hours of artillery bombardment, but this 
was also a warning to the enemy that an attack might 
be expected. General Foch had no intention of in- 
forming the Germans of what was about to take place. 
Just before daybreak on the morning of July 18th, 
says a writer of the London Times, " not a sound was 
to be heard from the forest, though it was teeming 
with men and guns. And then, suddenly, at the ap- 
pointed moment, as day broke, there was one roar 
from all the guns, and the whole front broke into 
activity as the men and tanks dashed forward to the 
attack." 

General Foch had not expected to drive the enemy 
from France before the spring of 1919, but. as the 



82 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

weeks passed and victory followed victory, it became 
clear that the attack of July 18th was to carry the 
Allies to the Rhine. 

"When did you know that you had won the final 
victory?" a newspaper correspondent afterwards 
asked General Foch. 

'' At the end of August," said Foch. " I did not 
know then when the Germans would give in, but I 
knew that our advance could not be stopped until they 
were finally defeated. Our offensive had become 
general. It began on July 18th on the Marne. Ter- 
rible fighting that. The Germans exhausted their 
reserves. That had gone well. Then came the attack 
in the Amiens sector on August 8th. That went well, 
too. The moment had arrived. I ordered General 
Humbert to attack in his turn. No reserves! No 
matter. Go ahead! I told General Haig to attack, 
too. He was also short of men. Attack all the same ! 
There we are, advancing everywhere — the whole 
line." 

By November the Allies had retaken nearly all of 
France and more than half of Belgium, and the Ger- 
mans, lacking food, ammunition, and men, knew that 
they must surrender or suffer the invasion of Ger- 
many. The last effort, which was to have been the 
Emperor's victory, had ended in defeat. At home the 
dissatisfaction of the people over their enormous 
losses and the hardships they had had to bear was 
pointing more and more toward a revolution. Con- 
sequently, on November 6th, the German government 



MARSHAL FOCH 83 

announced that it would send delegates to meet Foch 
— now Marshal Foch — who would present the Allies' 
terms for an armistice or temporary truce. 

From the German general headquarters in the little 
city of Spa, Belgium, the peace mission set out on the 
following day. Ten men composed the party. They 
traveled in automobiles, which bore white flags and 
were preceded by a trumpeter, lest they be mistaken 
by their own gunners. 

At Capclle they met French officers, who blind- 
folded them and conducted them through the French 
lines to the railway station of Rethondes, where Foch 
received them in the railway car which then served 
as his headquarters. 

The leader of the German party, speaking in 
French, requested Marshal Foch to read the terms of 
the armistice. 

The terms, w^hich were severe, were designed to 
prevent Germany from renewing the war. Foch read 
them slowly, in a stern voice, making each word clear. 
When he had finished, the Germans asked that the 
fighting might end at once. This request Foch re- 
fused. They then asked permission to send the terms 
by a courier to the German headquarters at Spa, and 
this request was granted. 

Meanwhile what was happening in Germany? On 
the same day that the peace delegates received the 
terms of the armistice, crowds were marching through 
the streets of several German cities, carrying red flags 
and shouting, " Long live the Revolution ! " The day 



84 • LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

before there had been mutiny on one of the Kaiser's 
ships, and on November 8th practically the entire navy 
was seized by the revolutionists. 

November 9th brought the abdication of the Kaiser 
and the Crown Prince and the news of their flight into 
Holland. On the 10th occurred the event so long 
feared b}^ the old government — the revolution. In 
Berlin that day thousands of laborers, soldiers, and 
sailors crowded the square in front of the government 
building to hear the Emperor's abdication read. Then, 
marching to his palace, they tore down the flag of the 
Empire and hoisted the red flag of the revolution in 
its place. 

These were the events which, occurring between 
the time that the German peace delegates left Spa and 
the arrival of the courier, hastened the signing of the 
armistice. 

On the morning of the 11th of November, Marshal 
Foch telegraphed his soldiers that the war had come 
to an end. 

REFERENCES 

Foch, Rene Puaux. 

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge. 

Foch, the Man, Clara E. Laughlin. 

General Foch at the Marne, Charles Le Goffic. 

Elements of the Great War, Hilaire Belloc. 

General Foch's Personality, Henry Leach, Living Age, Oct. 19, 

1918. 
Marshal Foch and the Second Victory of the Marne, E. 

Requin, Scribner's. Dec, 1918. 
Foch in the Midst of War, Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic, Oct., 

1918. 



IV. LORD KITCHENER 

The Kitcheners were an English family living on 
a farm in Kerry County, Ireland, when their son Her- 
bert was born on June 24, 1850. He was the second 
of five children. A few months after his birth his 
father purchased the Crotto estate, and Crotto House, 
an old Irish manor house, became the home of the 
Kitcheners for the next several years. 

Herbert's father, an excellent farmer and business 
man, was more interested in his affairs than in the 
education of his sons, and the boys were left much 
to themiselves. They lived out of doors and were not 
at all sorry to have sports take the place of history 
and Latin exercises. 

There were two things which Herbert liked espe- 
cially to do, to ride horseback and to swim in the 
ocean. From the house where the Kitcheners lived 
it was only a short distance to the pebbly beach which 
broke the line of wild, rugged hills along the south- 
west coast. Beneath one of the cliffs a great cave 
had been hollowed out by the swirling of the sea. It 
had once been used by pirates and smugglers, who had 
buried treasure there. That was the rumor, anyhow, 
and boys came from all the neighborhood to hunt 
for it. 

85 



86 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

However, treasure did not interest Herbert Kitch- 
ener so much. He came to the cave to go swimming. 
He was one of the best of swimmers, although the 
Irish boys could beat him when it came to some daring 
or reckless venture, because he would never take a 
chance. They teased him a great deal about this, but 
nothing they said ever troubled him, neither did he 
care how badly he was beaten. For he knew that, 
when it came to an emergency, he could do things 
that they could not. 

One day, when he was twelve, he swam a long way 
out to sea. He did not stop to think how far he had 
gone until he saw that he was opposite the headland 
that marks the entrance to the bay. Then, realizing 
that he would have a long swim back, he turned over 
on his back to rest. Soon he felt something tugging 
at his feet and found that he was hopelessly entangled 
in a floating mass of seaweed, which was slowly carry- 
ing him past the headland. It was impossible either 
to extricate himself or to swim and drag the seaweed 
after him. He tried both of these things; then he 
kept still and thought the problem out, and after a time 
he knew exactly what would happen. He waited very 
patiently, although he could see that the drifting mass 
was carrying him farther and farther toward the 
open sea. Then he heard far off the ripples of the 
incoming tide, and in a few minutes the tide reached 
him, loosened the seaweed, and he was free. 

Like most English boys, Herbert began to think 
about his career while he was still very young. His 



LORD KITCHENER 87 

father was a retired army officer, and he thought he 
would like to go to Woolwich, the West Point of Eng- 
land. But in order to get into Woolwich one had to 
study, and he was never very fond of study. In fact 
he had failed in his examinations at the village school. 
When his father heard about this he sent for him to 
talk things over. 

'' Herbert," he said, " a man must dream, must pos- 
sess the power of vision to be great ; but he must not 
let his dreaming run away with him. As punishment 
I shall send you to the neighboring dame school until 
you learn the value of mastering that which is at hand. 
Remember always that the practical side has its place 
as well as dreams. Thoroughness is our motto, you 
know, lad." 

Herbert was silent. 

*' Another failure," his father w^ent on, " and I shall 
apprentice you to a hatter." 

Still Herbert sat thinking; then he said, '' I think it 
will be Woolwich, sir," and got up and left the room. 
He never failed again. 

With four boys in the house, not only was it hard 
for Mr. and Mrs. Kitchener to have any peace, but 
there was the added difficulty of keeping the furniture 
intact. Year by year the house grew a little shabbier 
and a little noisier, until finally Mr. Kitchener packed 
the whole lot of them off to Switzerland to school. 

Although Herbert was thirteen at this time, he was 
still quite undisciplined. When he woke up in the 
morning, he used to decide what his conduct was to 



88 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

be for the day. If he decided to be agreeable, all 
went well; on the other hand no one could give more 
trouble than he when he set his mind in that direc- 
tion. He was also backward in his studies. Never- 
theless, he must have been thinking all the while of 
his career, for one day he remarked to his brother, 
'' I mean to get on." He did not talk about what he 
meant to do; in fact he rarely ever talked. It was 
clear, however, that in his own mind he had taken a 
decision. 

It was probably thirty years after that remark be- 
fore the world woke to the fact that he had got on, 
but during those years he never lost sight of his am- 
bition. 

He returned to London, after a few years in Swit- 
zerland, to cram for the Woolwich examinations. He 
was eighteen when he made Woolwich, and he did not 
stand very high in the lists. He had rather a dull 
mind. The only thing at which he was good was 
mathematics; other things came hard. But if his 
mind was not very brilliant, at least now he had it under 
the control of his will. He made it do what he wanted 
it to do, for he was doggedly determined to get on. 
He went to classes, took notes, and worked hard. He 
almost never joined with other cadets in sports or 
games. Athletics did not appeal to him; he had no 
ambition to win the Woolwich Colors, which most 
boys thought the' highest distinction to be attained at 
school. He kept largely to himself, sometimes not 
speaking, even to his friends, for days at a time. 



LORD KITCHENER 89 

Before he graduated from Woolwich, he was to see 
active service for the first time. In the summer of 
1870 Herbert's family was living in France, and he 
had only just got home for his vacation when the 
Franco-Prussian war was declared. He enlisted with 
the French and fought to the end. It was no spirit 
of adventure, however, that carried him into the war ; 
it was simply his ambition to get on. When, later, he 
returned to Woolwich and the commanding general 
asked him why he had joined the French army, Her- 
bert's answer was, ''I thought I should not be wanted 
for a time and I was anxious to learn something." 

What he learned was that the French, with all their 
sacrifice and splendid courage, were beaten by some- 
thing called organization, and he never forgot the 
lesson. 

He went home then to finish his studies and to get 
his commission in the British army, and shortly he 
received his first appointment, which was to go to 
Palestine with an archeological expedition. He got 
this appointment because he knew how to take pic- 
tures. 

His work in Palestine was mostly to draw maps. It 
was dull work and he spent four years at it. The 
government did not require him to learn Arabic, but 
he had a habit of looking ahead, and he saw that such 
knowledge would be invaluable to an army officer 
serving in the East. So once more he forced himself 
to a difficult task that had no immediate reward at- 
tached to it. It happened that things fell out just 



go LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

the way Kitchener thought they would; at any rate 
it was his knowledge of Arabic that brought him, in 
1882, the work of reorganizing the Egyptian army. 

When his brother heard of his appointment he said : 
"My young brother has just got himself appointed to 
Egypt; he'll never come out till he's at the top." And 
this was true. The story of modern Egypt is the 
story of Kitchener, 

Egypt was ruled jointly by Great Britain and the 
Egyptian government, as it is to-day, but the country 
had suffered greatly from the mismanagement of the 
Egyptians. The British government, therefore, sent 
Kitchener down to reorganize the army and look after 
things generally. 

To the south of Egypt lies the Sudan, a rich coun- 
try, a third as large as the United States, which for- 
merly had belonged to Egypt; but in 1881 a rebellion 
had broken out among the native Arabs, called Der- 
vishes. They had overrun the land and now held it. 
During the occupation of the Dervishes, which lasted 
from 1881 to 1898, the country underwent the most 
terrible devastation. Farms were neglected or to- 
tally destroyed; people died by the thousands from dis- 
ease and famine, were killed in war, or were sold as 
slaves by the Arabs, until only one fourth of the orig- 
inal population remained. When Kitchener was 
sent to Egypt, Britain had no immediate intention 
of attempting to reconquer the Sudan, but each year 
the Dervishes grew more daring; and more powerful 
until, finally, England concluded to act. It was 



LORD KITCHENER 91 

Kitchener's idea; therefore Kitchener was given the 
task. 

It was a stupendous task. In the first place, a 
great organization was required to move an army 
across the desert and insure a constant stream of sup- 
pHes. Of course it was not nearly so great an un- 
dertaking as the organization of the Great War, but 
in that day such a thing was unheard of. 

" First of all, I shall have to build a railroad," 
Kitchener said, and the War Office sent back word 
that this was impossible. From Wady Haifa to Abu 
Hamed, where Kitchener proposed to run his railroad, 
it was two hundred thirty miles across the burning 
desert. Locomotives couldn't be run without water, 
and where could one find water in a desert ? 

But Kitchener persisted and finally experts were 
sent to look over the route. They reported it quite 
impracticable; the thing simply could not be done. 

Kitchener listened to their reasons, and, after care- 
fully considering them, ordered that the railroad start 
at once. 

Whenever he drew plans for any undertaking he 
drew them so carefully that they simply could not fail. 
He knew where to find water. He sank wells. He 
sank three before he came to water, but when he did, 
he found enough to supply all his needs. Then he 
hunted up all the old discarded steamboats that had 
ever plied the Nile. These were patched, put into run- 
ning order, and used to bring in supplies until the rail- 
road was ready. 



92 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Kitchener's plan was to send the army ahead and 
conquer a small piece of territory, which was then 
turned over to the railroad engineers, while the army 
moved on to conquer more. Wady Haifa was the 
starting point. A sleepy Arab town, the terminus of 
an older railway, it came to life again when Kitchener 
turned it into a big workshop for his desert line. 

At Wady Haifa the railroad left the Nile and 
started across the desert, and soon a new town rose 
out of the sandy plains. It was built entirely of tents 
and was known as Railhead. As the railroad moved, 
the town moved, with its telegraph office, its station, 
its canteen, and its stores. Railhead had some 2,500 
inhabitants, who rose every morning at three o'clock 
to meet the incoming train which brought material for 
the day's work. 

At Abu Hamed the railway joined the Nile again 
and from there followed the river all the way to 
Khartum. When finally it was finished. Kitchener 
reported that, in return for the money the government 
had spent, England had now ''seven hundred sixty 
miles of railways, two thousand miles of telegraph 
lines, — and the Sudan." 

What it meant for each man who shared in the 
work can be understood only by trying to picture the 
country — the great stretches of treeless desert, the 
torrential rains, terrible sandstorms, the intense heat 
even in winter. The Arabs say of the Sudan: "The 
soil is like fire and the wind like flame." But no mat- 
ter w^hat the hardships of climate or the difficulties 



LORD KITCHENER 93 

under which men worked, Kitchener drove them with 
the same relentless energy with which he drove him- 
self. The railroad was built at the rate of one to three 
miles a day, whether men dropped or whether they car- 
ried on. He was unmerciful. He accepted no ex- 
cuses, even though they were reasonable ones. An 
officer who failed never got a second chance. 

There is the story of the young officer who, when 
called upon to do a certain piece of work, sent back 
word that he was suffering from sunstroke. "Sun- 
stroke ! " said Kitchener. '' What does he mean by 
having sunstroke at a time like this ? Send him back 
to Cairo." Everybody knew that there was not much 
hope of advancement for a man who was ''sent up," 
even for sickness, so the general under whom the 
young officer was serving wisely changed the order to 
'' You had better get over your sunstroke as quickly 
as you can." 

It was by such means as this that Kitchener was 
successful. Men did things that he asked them to, 
partly because they respected him, partly because they 
feared him. Laborers instinctively laid down their 
tools when he came to inspect their work. Officers 
were always silent in his presence. There was some- 
thing hard and unyielding about the man that was felt 
by everyone who came in contact with him, and this 
was emphasized by his physical qualities. He was tall 
and powerfully built, with broad, strong shoulders, and 
his body bent forward a little from the hips. His face 
was square and rugged and tanned brick-red by the 



94 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

African sun. But it was his eyes that people feared. 
They were as blue and as hard as steel, and one did not 
look at them any longer than he could help. 

One day Kitchener sent for an officer and told him 
to carry a dispatch to a distant city. 

" How long will it take you to do it ? " he asked. 

^'Twelve hours, sir." 

Then Kitchener looked at him and in his cold blue 
eyes the officer read a different estimate. 

''You must do it in six," said Kitchener, and the 
officer did it in five. 

Another officer was not so successful. Fearing 
that the Dervishes might attack the railway and cut 
off the army's water supply. Kitchener sent a brigade 
to raid the nearest Dervish camp, one hundred thirty 
miles across the desert. He then ordered a field tele- 
graph line strung that he might keep in touch with 
his brigade. 

"But how can I put up a line when I have neither 
appliances nor animals for transportation?" said the 
officer to whom the order was given. 

Kitchener frowned. He had been known to " send 
officers up " for saying his plans were impossible, but 
this time he chose to reprimand in a different way. 
He told the officer to go out and get some donkeys 
from the next village. To his mind, that much assist- 
ance should have been enough. 

The next morning, however, the officer reported 
that he had the donkeys, but that there were no saddles 
for carrying wire. Kitchener went himself to the 



LORD KITCHENER 95 

place where the field telegraph outfit had been col- 
lected. Beside the donkeys lay the coils of wire. 
For a moment his eyes were fixed with stern disap- 
proval on the officer, then he picked up a coil of wire, 
slipped it over a donkey's heels, and walked away 
without a word. 

There was never a word of praise for a man who did 
better than was expected of him, yet there was the un- 
derstanding both with officers and men that their 
chief gave as much as he demanded. He never failed 
them ; that is why they respected him so much. In all 
his years of service he was relieved from official duty 
only twice, once when he was wounded in Egypt, and 
once when he broke his leg in India. For his services 
in the Sudan he was made a member of the peerage, 
but it was thirteen years after this before he could find 
time for the necessary ceremony that would establish 
his m.embership in the House of Lords ; then he man- 
aged it only because he had to change trains in London 
and found himself burdened with a little spare time. 

Yet it is unfair to think of Kitchener as a man 
made up wholly of driving energy and an iron will. 
It was only when there was pressing work to be done 
that he became so hard and exacting. At other times 
he could show a different side. He was called from 
his work one day, when he was governor of Egypt, to 
see an old peasant who had come from somewhere in 
the back country all the way to Cairo to report that 
someone had stolen his white mule. Kitchener lis- 
tened attentively and made note of all the facts in the 



96 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

case; then, while the old man waited, he sent every- 
body — clerks, officers, and men — to look for a white 
mule. Literally the whole machinery of government 
was stopped until the mule was found, and the old 
man drove it home, telling everyone he met what an 
extraordinarily kind person the great Lord Kitchener 
was. 

Khartum, situated at the junction of the Blue and 
the White Nile, was formerly the capital of the Brit- 
ish-Egyptian Sudan, but in 1885 the Dervishes had 
captured and burned the city, and had taken for their 
capital the city of Omdurman, across the river. 

Before Omdurman Kitchener's army was encamped 
on the first day of September, 1898, waiting to begin 
the battle that was to end a campaign of nearly two 
and a half years. All night the army waited. The 
men dared not sleep, not knowing what the Dervishes 
might do. 

With the first light of morning the British saw 
them — a moving line of white figures. They were 
coming on! "They came very fast," says a corre- 
spondent with Kitchener's army,^ '^and they came 
very straight, and then, presently, they came no far- 
ther. With a crash the bullets leaped out of the Brit- 
ish rifles." 

It was not yet seven o'clock when the battle began. 
At 11.30 Kitchener, who had commanded, put up his 
glasses, saying that the enemy had been given a good 
dusting. 

^ With Kitchener to Khartoum, by G. W. Steevens. 



LORD KITCHENER 97 

Thirty-one thousand Dervishes had fallen. Kitch- 
ener's army, in the beginning, had numbered less 
than 26,000 and his own casualties were light. The 
battle had been a fury of fighting. The infantry fired 
until their rifies grew red hot, the lancers thrust until 
their lances broke as they charged straight into the 
Dervish lines and went through. 

And Kitchener? ''In the center," writes a corre- 
spondent,^ "under the red Egyptian flag, careless of 
the bulletc which that conspicuous emblem drew and 
which inflicted some loss among those around him, 
rode the Sirdar, stern and sullen, equally unmoved by 
fear or enthusiasm." 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by 
his staff and a regimental band, he rode into Omdur- 
man. As he approached the city he was met by three 
Dervishes, w^ho begged him to spare the lives of the 
people. 

Kitchener told them that he would speak with the 
head man of the town, and shortly an old man, riding 
a donkey, came to present him the keys to the gates. 
Prostrating himself in the dust, he repeated the re- 
quest for mercy. Kitchener spoke to him in Arabic. 
"The lives of all who lay down their arms will be 
spared," he said. At this the old man rose, kissed the 
hand of the Sirdar, and hurried back to Omdurman 
to tell the news. In an instant the city, which had 
appeared deserted, swarmed with people. Pressing 
around the British, they kissed their garments and 

1 The River War, by Winston Churchill. 

H 



98 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

their boots, and called down all the blessings of Allah 
on their conquerors. 

When the British and Egyptian flags had been run 
up over Khartum, Kitchener set to work to clean up 
the city. Then he went home to England to get money 
for a church and a college, for, he said, '' Those who 
have conquered are now called on to civilize." 

Egypt was his great achievement. Although he 
served in South Africa four years during the Boer 
War and later seven years in India as commander-in- 
chief of the Indian armies, neither country offered in 
the same degree the opportunities for organization 
and reconstruction that he found in Egypt. It was to 
Egypt, therefore, that he returned, and there he re- 
mained until he was called to the War Office in Lon- 
don in 1914. 

He had been home on a furlough that summer and 
was just starting back to Egypt when a telegram re- 
called him to serve as England's Minister of War. 

It was only then, perhaps, that the English people 
realized what Kitchener meant to them. They felt 
the deepest confidence in him. He had never failed 
them. He would not fail them now. And so he sat 
down to his task, the biggest task that he had ever 
undertaken, unhurried and unworried, yet working 
with all of his old tireless energy, although he was 
now sixty-four. 

With Kitchener in the War Office, England began 
to breathe freely once more. "It will be only a short 
war," people said, "and Kitchener will see it through/' 



LORD KITCHENER 



99 



i.^y-;*"^:^, 







Lord Kitchener 



lOO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

But Kitchener thought differently. ''The war will 
last three years," he said, ''and we shall need great 
armies." No one believed him. Besides, how was 
England to equip a great army ? 

While others debated the question, Kitchener went 
to work. First, he called for 500,000 men. This 
staggered the nation, and, before it had recovered 
from the shock, he called for 500,000 more. Bills 
were posted all over England which read: "Enlist in 
Kitchener's army. Your king and country need you." 

It took months of the hardest kind of training to 
shape England's new army, and to equip it required 
an organization so big that many doubted whether 
it could ever be accomplished. But Kitchener never 
doubted and, although it was left to another great 
man, Lloyd George, to work out the details of the or- 
ganization, it was Kitchener's unyielding confidence 
that got things under way. 

Meanwhile the expeditionary force of scarcely 
200,000 men w^as to " hold the line " in Fr^tice, al- 
though Kitchener himself expected that the Germans 
would sweep them clear to the Atlantic coast. How 
they held, retreated, held again, and by holding saved 
Paris, is one of the great stories of the war. The 
army was wiped out almost to a man, but the line held 
unbroken for five months until divisions of the new 
army began to arrive. 

Each British soldier who went to France carried in 
his knapsack a personal message from Kitchener in 
the form of ten rules of conduct. Summarized, it ran 
something like this: 



LORD KITCHENER lOl 

" You are going over there to help the French, and 
this is a task which will require all your energy, 
patience, and courage. 

'' Remember that the honor of the British army 
depends on the conduct of each individual. There- 
fore, you are to set an example of discipline and per- 
fect steadiness under fire. 

'' Treat the French and the Belgians with courtesy, 
consideration, and kindness, and do not destroy prop- 
erty. 

" Keep in the best of health for the sake of duty, 
and if it should be necessary, give everything for God 
and your King." 

For nearly two years Kitchener sat at his desk in 
the War Office endlessly planning. Sometimes he 
visited the training camps, sometimes he inspected the 
armies in France, but perhaps he gave to England no 
greater service than his example of calm, dogged per- 
sistence in the work to be done. There was hardly a 
person who, during the first months of the war, did 
not give way either to undue excitement or anxiety, 
and the example of Kitchener, silent and unmoved, 
helped to steady the whole nation for the long struggle 
and sacrifice to come. 

As the war progressed, it became clear that there 
was a need for closer cooperation among the Allies, 
and it was decided that Kitchener should go to Russia, 
presumably to confer with the Russian General Staff 
in regard to ammunition. 

Kitchener looked forward to the trip as to a holi- 



I02 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

day. Having lived so much of his Hfe in the open, he 
had no hking for office work, and after two full years 
of it, here was a vacation of the kind he enjoyed most. 
He paid a short visit to his home at Broome, a place 
of which he was very fond, said good-by to a few 
friends, and with his staff left London on an evening 
in June, 1916. Traveling by train to a small station 
in Scotland, he was driven by automobile to a waiting 
destroyer, which in turn conveyed him to the cruiser 
Hampshire. 

What happened to the Hampshire is not known ex- 
cept that it sank that night on the west coast of the 
Orkney Islands and Lord Kitchener, with 4iis staff, 
went down. 

It was a night of violent storm. Four boats put off 
from the cruiser but none of them reached shore, two 
miles away. Twelve men were washed in on a raft; 
out of more than two hundred fifty these were all that 
survived. 

There are many theories regarding the loss of the 
Hampshire. Some people believe that the ship was 
torpedoed, but it seems more probable that it struck a 
mine which had been wrenched from its moorings by 
the storm. One of the survivors remembers to have 
seen Kitchener just after the explosion occurred. He 
was walking quietly up and down the deck waiting for 
the boats to be launched, though he must have known 
that any attempt to reach shore would prove useless 
for he had not even put on his overcoat. The blue- 
jackets prepared to abandon ship. The captain 



LORD KITCHENER 103 

shouted something to Kitchener, which, in the howl- 
ing of the storm, he did not hear ; he was talking to an 
officer as the ship went down. 

His death shocked England as nothing else had in 
the whole course of the war. It was a national trag- 
edy, not lessened by the fact that Kitchener himself 
would have counted it only a part of the day's work. 

REFERENCES 

Boys' Life of Lord Kitchener, Harold F. B. Wheeler. 

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Harold Begbie. 

Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, Edwin Sharp Grew. 

With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 

The River War, Winston Churchill. 

Kitchener the Unknozvu, Sidney Brooks, World Today, Oct., 

1911. 
Kitchener the Boy, Eugenie M. Fryer, Forum, Apr., 1917. 
Kitchener in Action, World's Work, Nov., 1914. 
Personal Glimpses, Literary Digest, Sept. 19, 1914. 
Sinking of the Hampshire, Illustrated London News, June 24, 

1916. 



V. MARSHAL HAIG 

In October of 1880 a young Scotchman by the name 
of Douglas Haig went down to Oxford to register at 
England's oldest university. He was the youngest 
of five sons. For generations the Haigs had lived at 
Cameron's Bridge in the county of Fife. Here was 
the ancestral estate, and here in 1861 Douglas Haig 
had been born. He w^as educated 2it Clifton, a pri- 
vate school for sons of the upper classes, but in Eng- 
land called a public school. At Clifton he prepared 
for the university. 

It was taken as a matter of course that Douglas 
Haig would go to Oxford. Probably the Haigs had 
always gone to Oxford and the youngest son was to be 
no exception. Conditions at Oxford to-day have 
changed so little from those of the early eighties, 
when Haig was a student there, that it is not difficult 
to imagine what his college days were like. 

To begin with, Oxford is quite different from an 
American university. In England the word "uni- 
versity " means a group of colleges, and a college is the 
place where a student lives. There are twenty-six 
colleges at Oxford, each having its own customs and 
practices, differing somewhat from the others, and 
standing for certain things in the life of the student. 

104 



MARSHAL HAIG 105 

For instance, Brasenose College has always been fa- 
mous for its athletics, and it was at Brasenose that 
Douglas Haig registered. 

Suppose that he drove up from the station, as un- 
doubtedly he did, with his luggage piled high on the 
driver's seat. At the gates of the college he was met 
by a porter, who lifted down his luggage and turned 
him over to the college butler to be show^n his rooms. 
At Oxford freshmen have some privileges that seniors 
are denied If there is not enough room in the col- 
leges for all the students, the juniors and seniors are 
turned out to find lodgings wherever they can in the 
town and to m.ake room for the freshmen. This is 
because the English believe that the life of the college 
is as much a part of a man's education as the books 
he studies, and that the older students, having enjoyed 
this privilege, should if necessary give place to the 
younger men. 

Douglas Haig, then, as a freshman, was certain of 
having rooms. He had at least two, possibly three, 
and they were furnished quite luxuriously compared 
with the rooms of a student at an American university. 
Here he was to live and study for three or four years. 

His college day began at 7.30 in the morning when a 
servant, called by the students a '' scout," bustled into 
his room, prepared a bath, and announced " Half past 
seven, sir." 

At eight o'clock he went to chapel, which took the 
place of roll call. He dared not miss chapel; to 
stay away even one day out of six meant that he 



Ig6 leaders of the GREAT WAR 

would be reported to his dean and probably would be 
forbidden to pass the college gates after dark. For 
Oxford was founded in the Middle Ages, when most 
of the students were children or at least boys of high 
school age, and some of the old rules seem very funny 
when applied to a body of grown men. To-day a stu- 
dent may not roll his hoop in the quadrangles or play 
marbles on the steps of the great library. 

Following chapel Haig breakfasted in his rooms or 
in the rooms of some other student. Since social af- 
fairs took up a large part of the day, it was the custom 
frequently to breakfast or lunch with friends. 

After luncheon, which usually consisted of bread 
and cheese with a little jam, he went to the athletic 
field. Haig was an all-round athlete. He was 
splendidly healthy and strong and he had the English 
boy's love of sports. English boys do not play to win. 
They play to perfect themselves in the game. Of 
course those who play the best game usually do win, 
but the first object is to increase one's skill. Douglas 
Haig's favorite form of exercise was horseback rid- 
ing, and, as might be expected, he was a fine polo 
player. 

At four o'clock he was back in his rooms and 
dressed for tea. Tea afforded another opportunity 
for the men to gather and talk. This time the talk 
usually ran to sports and to the happenings of the day. 
Between tea and dinner there were two hours when 
there was no special demand on a student's time. It 
was the general custom to give these hours to reading. 



MARSHAL HAIG 107 

At seven the dinner bell rang and the students, 
dressed now in their gowns, filed into the great hall 
and took their places at table. There were no chairs. 
They sat on benches, and probably the benches and 
tables, like the hall itself, had come down from the 
Middle Ages. 

At one end of the hall w^as a raised platform on 
which stood the table for the " dons " or tutors. The 
dons did not enter until the students had taken their 
places. This formality over, the dinner began. In 
spite of the fact that one of the duties of the dons was 
to fine students for any breach of table manners, din- 
ner was a jolly affair. For dessert the students went 
to the college store, w^hich in Brasenose was a room 
underneath the great hall, where there w^as a fine dis- 
play of fruits and candies to choose from, and after- 
wards they returned to their rooms for coffee. 

The American boy, reading of Oxford, will quite 
likely ask, ''Do the students never study?'' 

They do, but they are not required to prepare daily 
lessons. There are no classes. Each student has his 
private tutor, w^ith whom he works as much or as 
little as he wishes. In the three or four years that 
he spends at Oxford he is required to pass two exam- 
inations — that is all. As the most of his work is 
reading for these examinations, he may do it at any 
time. It is a curious fact that sometimes he prefers 
to do it at home during the summer holidays. 

The examinations, however, are exceedingly diffi- 
cult, and if a student is, so to speak, " on his own " for 



io8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

months at a time, there comes a day finally when he 
must give an account of what he has done. More- 
over, his whole career may depend on how he accounts 
for himself. Especially is this true of a man entering 
a profession. A degree from Oxford, or from some 
other university, is almost necessary, and an "honor" 
degree is of priceless value. 

All through his college days Douglas Haig debated 
between literature and soldiering as a profession. 
But after his graduation he definitely decided on a 
military career and took the examinations for the 
Royal Military College. Then came a disappoint- 
ment — he was refused admission on account of color 
blindness. For a time it looked as though he would 
have to give up the career he had chosen, when the 
commander-in-chief, hearing of his difficulties, gave 
him an appointment. Having worked so hard to be 
admitted to the Royal Military College, Haig worked 
all the harder once he was in. He made a splendid 
record. 

He chose the cavalry and was one of the young 
officers selected by Kitchener for the expedition to 
the Sudan. There he experienced for the first time 
the dangers and hardships of campaigning. It was 
the work of the army to conquer the country and pre- 
pare the way for the railroad which Kitchener was 
building across the desert. Young officers found their 
endurance tried to the utmost. 

Work began at four or five m the morning. It was 
supposed to end at seven in the evening, but for a 



MARSHAL HAIG 109 

junior officer there was little or no leisure. At night 
he must look after the comforts of his men. He him- 
self slept in the sand. If there were not enough blan- 
kets he went without. It fell to him also to patrol 
the camp, since the Egyptian sentries could not be 
trusted to keep awake. He was lucky if he could 
snatch a few hours' sleep between patrols. He was 
still luckier if he could sleep comfortably, protected 
from the penetrating cold of a desert night. 

For two years Haig kept at it doggedly and cheer- 
fully. He had a quiet way of meeting difficulties that 
delighted Kitchener. Nothing was too hard for him. 
He never complained; he simply worked. 

As he was a captain at the time and much inter- 
ested in his profession, he sometimes thought out 
plans of his own. He knew quite well that Kitchener 
did not take kindly to suggestions from young officers, 
but he did not let slip a chance to improve his knowl- 
edge on that account. He fought in both the big 
battles of the campaign — at Atbara and Khartum. 
For his skill in handling his men in the battle of Khar- 
tum he was made a major; for his bravery he was 
twice decorated. 

In 1899 came the war in South Africa, or Boer 
War. The Boers were farmers, chiefly of Dutch 
descent, living in parts of South Africa known as the 
Transvaal and Orange Free State. These states were 
Dutch republics having an independent government, 
although they acknowledged the protection of Great 
Britain. The discovery of diamond mines in Orange 



no LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Free State and of gold in the Transvaal brought to 
the country thousands of foreigners, for the most 
part British, and the ill feeling which grew up between 
the Dutch farmers and the British capitalists led 
finally, in the fall of 1899, to war. 

One of the first things that happened was the siege 
of Kimberley by the Boers. Kimberley, a city of 
50,000 inhabitants in Orange Free State, possessed the 
largest diamond mines in the world. Early in Octo- 
ber of 1899 the Boers surrounded the city and de- 
manded its surrender, but the people of Kimberley 
refused, thinking that they had on hand a sufficient 
supply of food and ammunition to hold out until the 
British army could reach them. As month followed 
month, however, and the British army did not come, 
the people grew alarmed, for, aside from a growing 
shortage of food, many were killed daily by the Boer 
shells. Finally, in February, 1900, they sent an appeal 
to the British commander-in-chief, Lord Roberts, for 
immediate relief. 

There had been before this time many attempts to 
reach Kimberley, but all had failed. Now the task 
fell to General French, the general who, in 1914, was 
to become the commander-in-chief of the British 
armies in France. Ford Roberts warned him of the 
difficulties. To this General French replied : '' I 
promise faithfully to relieve Kimberley at six o'clock 
on the evening of the fifteenth of February, if I am 
alive." 

The camp of General French on the eleventh was 



MARSHAL HAIG ill 

about a hundred miles from Kimberley. Major Haig 
was one of his chief officers. Between the camp and 
Kimberley lay the Boer army. The country was a 
difficult one in which to fight and French had allowed 
himself only four days to get through. 

It was African mid-summer. The sun beat down 
cruelly upon a plain that offered neither shade nor 
food nor water. As the men marched, great clouds 
of dust rose and settled on them, choking and blinding 
them and increasing their thirst. Their suffering was 
intense. Some dropped by the way, overcome by 
the heat. Over a hundred horses fell and their riders 
were obliged to walk or to wait under the scorching 
sun until ammunition carts could pick them up. On 
the third day's march a well was reached, but General 
French would not permit the cavalry to touch a drop. 
The water must be kept for the infantry coming on 
behind. 

Deceiving the Boers as to the direction he meant 
to take. General French had twice eluded them with- 
out heavy fighting. Once a shell had fallen between 
him and his staff, but no one had been killed. On the 
fourth day, however, he found himself in a position 
from which he must either withdraw or abandon Kim- 
berley. He was hemmed in on all sides but the one 
from which he had come. By all military rules he 
should have turned back, but he had promised to 
relieve the city and he meant to keep his promise. He 
decided on a cavalry charge straight at the enemy's 
lines. He thought the cavalry might be wiped out, 



112 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

but the experiment was worth trying, and with his 
staff officers he led the charge. 

The Boers, watching closely for any move on the 
part of the British, were suddenly amazed at the sight 
of hundreds of horsemen, with pistols and lances, 
dashing across the plain straight at them. The unex- 
pectedness of the charge unnerved them. Their shots 
went wild. A hundred fifty men fell ; then the army 
broke and fled. 

The inhabitants of Kimberley, looking out over the 
plain that day, saw, miles away, a company of horse- 
men advancing rapidly toward the city. Believing 
them to be Boers, they prepared to surrender, for the 
addition of such a large enemy force made it hopeless 
to hold out longer. Then, as the company drew 
nearer, they saw that they were in khaki uniform. 

'' British ! " someone cried, and the cheers that rang 
out startled the Boers who guarded the city. They 
also looked and fled, and General French's scouts came 
dashing into Kimberley within an hour of the time he 
had promised. 

With such experiences as these Haig's years in 
South Africa were filled. He escaped death so many 
times and by such narrow margins that his fellow 
officers gave him the name of '' Lucky Haig." 

When the Great War came, Haig was a lieutenant- 
general, in command of Alder shot, England's largest 
training camp. In the two years since he had taken 
command he had worked constantly to improve the 
training of the men. Never before had they been so 
efficient as under him. 



MARSHAL HAIG 113 

The Aldershot troops were among the first to be 
called. During the early days of August, 1914, train 
load after train load left the camp. '' Where are we 
bound for ? " was the question they constantly asked. 
No one could answer for no one knew. Somewhere 
in France there was a war. Quite likely they would 
fight. 

Arriving at Southampton, they were packed in 
transports along with horses and supplies and dis- 
patched across the channel. The war loomed much 
nearer. A few hours later they disembarked at a 
French port and began the last lap of a journey from 
which few, if any, were to return. 

Sometimes they did not land at a port, but sailed up 
the rivers of France to some inland city — sailed, sing- 
ing the Marseillaise, and the French women and chil- 
dren flocked to the rivers with flowers and British 
flags, cheering the men who had come to the rescue of 
France. 

The British met the Germans for the first time at 
Mons, Belgium, on the 24th of August, 1914. The 
battles of those first days of the war were somewhat 
like a game of tenpins. Let us say that the Germans, 
in their march across Belgium, had knocked down 
every pin but three, and that the three remaining were 
the cities of Namur, Charleroi, and Mons. The Allies 
had no idea of the numbers of Germans opposed to 
them. Their estimate was about half the number that 
struck at their lines, struck with such overwhelming 
force that the three remaining pins went down, one 



114 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

after another. First Namur, which had been held by 
the Belgians, fell. Then came the defeat of the 
French at Charleroi, and last, the British retreat 
from Mons before von Kluck's splendid First Army. 
These three defeats forced the long retreat of the 
French and British armies to the river Marne. 

A retreating army escapes capture or destruction 
only by sacrificing a part of itself. Some units must 
be continually fighting to hold the enemy while the 
larger force withdraws. It was this position of sacri- 
fice that fell to Flaig's First Corps at Mons. 

" We shall hold here for a while if we all die for it,'' 
said Haig. 

There was a night engagement, bayonet fighting by 
the light of gun fire, in which many of Haig's men 
fell ; then, while the Second Corps carried on, the First 
fell back. Thus, step by step, the armies retreated a 
hundred fifty miles. 

The intention of the Germans at this time was to 
destroy the Allied armies. But they failed to do this 
and, after a disastrous defeat on the Marne, were 
forced to swing backward in retreat to the river Aisne. 
When the retreat ended, the position of the armies left 
an open space between the city of Lens in northern 
France and the sea. Here was the gate to Calais and 
Boulogne, the French ports through which the British 
were sending men and supplies. 

The Germans saw a chance to strike; the British 
saw the danger; and both rushed to close the gate. 
The British arrived first, took position before the Bel- 



MARSHAL HAIG 



115 







Marshal Haig 






Ii6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

gian city of Ypres, and thus blocked the way to the 
channel ports. 

Although the Germans had failed to reach the gate 
in time, they were confident that they could break it 
open. Heavy reenforcements, just arrived from 
home, had come, as one officer remarked, to see the 
British run. They would be in Calais by the end of 
the week. 

As the men were preparing to go into battle their 
officers sought to cheer them by announcing that Paris 
had fallen. This news had the desired effect. The 
men went wild with joy. They danced and sang the 
German national air and a triumphal song, especially 
written for their entry into Paris. 

But one soldier, who had been in several battles of 
the war, was not deceived. "Unfortunately, this is 
the fourth time wt have had the fall of Paris an- 
nounced to us," he remarked. 

It was Haig, with the First Army Corps, w^ho had 
closed the Ypres gate to the Germans. This corps 
had been the first to arrive. Others followed and 
scarcely had the British time to form their plan of 
defense before the Germans attacked, now here, now 
there, in order to try the strength of the line they 
meant to break. Meanwhile they prepared for the 
great battle. 

It began on the morning of October 29th. Like a 
storm that had been slowly gathering, it now broke 
furiously. At dawn the Germans came singing and 
yelling and hurled themselves against Haig's First 



MARSHAL HAIG 117 

Corps. The thin British Hne wavered and swayed 
backward, then forward again, then back. Eight 
hours later the British were everywhere driven from 
their trenches ; the Germans had broken in the gate. 
Then came Haig's order for the counter-attack, and 
the men swept forward, cheering, and retook their old 
positions. 

The first attack on Ypres ended in failure, but this 
meant only that others would follow, for the Emperor 
desired the city and had come himself to see it taken. 
He went about am.ong his soldiers, cheering them and 
encouraging them with that story, already worn and 
old, that victory would end the war. 

On the afternoon of October 31st, when the Ger- 
mans were making their strongest effort to break 
through, a shell struck Haig's headquarters, killing 
or wounding every officer of the staff. Fortunately 
Haig himself stood just far enough away to escape 
injury. He was knocked down by the concussion, 
however, and lay unconscious for an hour. 

It was a critical time for the First Corps to lose its 
commander and General French was obliged to go to 
the battle line to prepare for the counter-attack. Haig 
was just returning to consciousness when General 
French appeared. Refusing to go to a hospital, he 
insisted on accompanying the commander-in-chief to 
the line. Still dazed and staggering, he gave orders 
and rallied his men. Cheers greeted him and with 
cheers the line went forward and, once more, the gate 
to the channel cities was closed. 



ii8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The Kaiser made one more attempt to take Ypres. 
Ten days later, on November 11th, he flung into the 
battle the best soldiers of his army, the famous Prus- 
sian Guards, and, when these also were defeated, he 
gave up. The fighting lasted twenty-seven days and 
the cost in human lives was very high. The losses for 
this one battle, including those of the Allies and the 
Germans, were nearly equal to the losses of the North 
during the entire Civil War. 

Winter was now coming on and, neither side having 
won a decisive victorv, the armies alons: the entire six 
hundred fifty mile battle line began to dig them- 
selves in. Trench warfare took the place of war in 
open country, or what is called war of movement. 
So strong and secure were the trenches that, for nearly 
two years, it seemed impossible that the war could 
ever end, because the positions on neither side could 
be taken. In 1915 the British tried twice to break 
through the German lines, at Neuve Chapelle and at 
Loos, and failed. The French attempted the same 
thing in the Champagne country and were unsuccess- 
ful. Early in 1916 the Germans began their attack 
on Verdun, the most powerful assault yet made upon 
any intrenched positions, but Verdun also proved a 
failure. This was the situation w^hen, in June of 
1916, the British began their great offensive against 
the German positions in the region of the Somme 
River, known as the battle of the Somme. 

Some of the strongest of the German positions lay to 
the northeast of the city of Albert, audit was here that 



MARSHAL HAIG 119 

the " Big Push " began. There were three main Hnes 
of fortifications, connected by innumerable trenches 
and railways. If you were to lay upon a table a some- 
what narrow piece of lace and think of each separate 
thread as a German trench, you would have some idea 
of what the network of fortifications, known as the 
German first line, looked like. Then, if you were to 
lay behind the first a second and narrower strip, you 
would have constructed the second line. The third 
would cotisist of a single thread, that is, of a single 
line of trenches. The pattern of the lace would cor- 
respond roughly to the fortified woods and villages 
which these threads of trench lines connected. 

Not only was this network of galleries and dugouts 
a position of defense, but here the German army had 
lived for nearly two years. The men had had little 
fighting to do and had spent their time in making their 
quarters comfortable, sanitary, and safe. The chalky 
soil of the region made excavating easy. Dugouts, 
especially officers' dugouts, were marvelously con- 
structed and luxuriously furnished. Built of heavy 
timbers and concrete, barred by iron doors, and buried 
in the depths of the earth, they were fairly safe from 
shells. 

Some of them were of two stories, with a suite of 
rooms upon each floor connected by staircases. One 
such suite had ten rooms, including a bath. The floor 
was covered with linoleum. The walls were papered 
and hung with pictures. The apartment was fur- 
nished after the manner of a comfortable citv home. 



I20 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

There were chairs, desks, brass and wooden beds, and 
tables with books and magazines. There was a piano 
and a phonograph. A system of electric lights and 
bells had been installed, and before the door hung 
absorbent curtains to keep out poisonous gases. It 
is hardly to be wondered at that the officers who lived 
there did not believe that their dugout could be taken. 

General Haig, now commander-in-chief of the Brit- 
ish armies, had been preparing for the battle of the 
Somme for a year. Miles of railways had been con- 
structed, new roads made, and causeways built across 
the Somme marshes. Hundreds of miles of new 
trenches were dug, with shelters, first-aid stations, and 
magazines for ammunition. Miners worked for 
months laying mines under the German trenches. A 
whole water system was installed, with a hundred 
pumping plants and one hundred twenty miles of new 
water mains. 

Of the old First Army that had fought at Mons 
and Ypres hardly a man was left now, not a trained 
soldier, except for a few officers, in the entire British 
force. It was an army of clerks, tradesmen, students, 
and laborers, but the number had grown from 300,000 
to 5,000,000. 

Every time it rained the parapets melted down and 
had to be rebuilt. Sometimes the trenches also disap- 
peared. Digging, constant digging, filled the soldiers' 
days. Though there was little fighting, each day took 
its toll of life. Plenty of German shells and bombs 
found their way into the trenches, and German snipers 



MARSHAL HAIG 121 

were always watching for men who grew indifferent 
or careless. Such were the conditions under which 
the British army learned the new business of warfare. 

They were conditions that, as the months passed, 
began to wear on the nerves of the men — the dirt, 
the discomfort, the monotony of work, the standing 
still to be shot at. What was the sense of it all? 
When was it ever going to end? 

Then one day a rumor came and the hopes of the 
army rose. The increasing activity everywhere be- 
hind the lines meant only one thing — a battle. At 
last they were going to leave the trenches. 

It was the end of June, 1916, and the region of the 
Somme blossomed with yellow mustard, red poppies, 
and blue corn-flowers. Grain fields covered the slop- 
ing plains, broken by patches of wood and winding 
rivers, with here and there a village. Along the 
roads, poplar trees grew in tall, straight lines and hid 
the masses of men and trucks which were moving 
toward the battlefield of the morrow. But as yet 
no one knew just when the attack would come. For a 
week a furious bombardment of the German lines had 
gone on incessantly. Then, when night came, officers 
whispered to each other, ''At 7.30 in the morning." 

July 1st dawned clear and hot. The storm of shells 
that for a week had been raining on the German lines 
now gathered fury, hour by hour, until at 7.15 it be- 
came a hurricane. To those who watched from the 
heights back of the lines it was like the breaking of the 
sea ag-ainst a rockv coast. The shells fell with mar- 



122 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

velous precision along a straight line and great jets 
of earth spouted into the air, filling the plain with dust 
and smoke. Their accuracy was due to the men in 
the kite balloons, who, from their high observation 
posts back of the lines, directed the fire of the artillery. 
Mountains of shells disappeared into the guns, and 
when they fell upon the German lines, mountains 
seemed to rise again out of the plains. The minutes 
passed. Seven-thirty drew near, and now the line of 
breaking shells leaped forward and thick clouds of 
smoke rolled across No Man's Land — a screen for 
the advancing army. There came a lull. Then, in 
a few seconds the bombardment began again. The 
men had gone over the top. 

Near a village called Beaumont-Hamel miners had 
been working for months preparing for this day. 
They had constructed the largest mine yet known to 
the war. 

'' The exploding chamber," said a sergeant who had 
helped to build it,^ " was as big as a picture palace, and 
the gallery was an awful length. It took seven 
months to build and we were working under some 
crack Lancashire miners. Every time a fresh fatigue 
party came up, they'd say: 'Ain't your grotto ever 
going up?' But, my word, it went up all right the 
first of July. It was the sight of your life. Half the 
village got a rise. The air was full of stuff — wagons, 
wheels, horses, tins, boxes, and Germans. It was 
seven months well spent getting that mine ready. I 
believe some of the pieces are coming down yet." 

1 Battle of the Sommc, Philip Gibbs. 



MARSHAL HAIG 123 

So began the battle of the Somme. The taking of 
those miles ui:)on miles of fortified German trenches 
was to prove a difficult and discouraging task. The 
cost in human lives was enormous, yet progress was 
made, a little each day. By hard fighting a village 
was won here, a wood there, until the British were 
well through the German first lines. Then followed 
another attack on the enemy's second line. This was 
on July 14th. The summer wore on. By September 
the army was attacking the last villages within the 
fortified area. On the fifteenth they reached open 
country. They had accomplished the thing that for 
nearly two years was believed impossible — they had 
broken through. 

It was about this date that the British sprang on 
the Germans a little surprise that they had been keep- 
ing for months — the tanks. No one had dreamed 
of armored cars such as these. A few days before 
the first tank made its appearance on the British front, 
an ofiicer who had seen one tried to describe its ap- 
pearance and use. 

''They eat up houses," he said. ''Walk right over 
them .... They knock down trees like match 
sticks. They go clean through a wood." 

"Anything else?" a fellow officer asked. 

"Everything else. They take ditches like kanga- 
roos. They simply love shell craters. Laugh at 
'em ! " 

And one morning not long after this, two of these 
queer creatures went over the top at dawn. In all the 



124 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

war there had never been anything as funny as this, 
and the men followed, cheering and laughing and wav- 
ing their helmets. 

The tanks laughed, too. They knew that they bore 
a charmed life — that was the joke. The time was to 
come w^hen the Germans would learn how to send their 
bullets into the hearts of these monsters, but now they 
only hit and fell away. The tanks waddled serenely 
across No Man's Land through a shower of bullets. 
They dipped into shell holes and came up again. They 
tramped down fences, snapped off trees, walked right 
through barbed wire entanglements. If an old build- 
ing appeared in their way, they would lean against it 
for a moment as though thinking w^hat to do. Then 
the building would crumble in ruins and the tanks 
climb over the ruins and go laughing on. 

When they reached the German lines they sat calmly 
down on the trenches and began to fire their guns. 
The frightened Germans ran from their shelters with 
cries of ''Mercy! Mercy!" and one colonel advanced, 
his hands held high over his head, shouting "Kam- 
erad." 

The tank heard him, for suddenly a hand reached 
out and grabbed him and drew him inside through a 
hole and treated him to a ride over the lines. 

The other tank, feeling better and better as the 
morning wore on, struck off in an easterly direction 
toward Berlin. There was fighting going on here 
also, shells and shrapnel falling, and men pressing 
steadily on toward a village called Fler. Outside the 



MARSHAL HAIG 125 

village the tank met the army and together they pushed 
on. An airman who had been watching the game 
flashed back by wireless the first news of their victory. 
" A tank is walking up the High Street of Fler with 
the British army cheering behind." 

• ••••** 

The battle of the Somme did not result in any very 
great gain in territory, but it proved that positions 
which the Germans had believed unconquerable could 
be taken. It also relieved the French, who had been 
fighting for months at Verdun, and, not by any means 
of least importance, it took the heart out of the Ger- 
mans. The Somme became a word of dread and ter- 
ror. 

In a French chateau some miles behind the lines 
lived the man who had planned this battle. There 
was little about the appearance of Haig's headquarters 
to remind one of war. The chateau was set in the 
midst of a formal garden. Flowers bloomed in the 
hedges. Cattle grazed in the meadows near by. 
Upon the whole countryside was a look of peace. 

Within, the chateau remained just as the owners 
had left it. The paintings hung in their accustomed 
places and the furniture had hardly been disarranged. 

General Haig's office was in the drawing room. 
Beside his desk stood a table, on which rested a large 
relief map of the Somme region. It was made of 
ereen and red clav and was criss-crossed bv red lines, 
indicating roads and trenches. The walls, too, were 
hung with maps. The study table, covered with re- 



126 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

ports and photographs, told its own story. For 
months Haig had sat here planning. He had made 
a study of the weather conditions of the locality cov- 
ering a period of twenty years. He had had photo- 
graphed every foot of enemy territory, its appearance 
in fair weather, after rain, and after snow. No 
amount of work was too much if it would add to the 
success of his plans. 

Promptly at nine o'clock every morning he was at 
his desk. He first studied the reports of everything 
that had happened the night before ; then he held con- 
ferences with his staff officers until luncheon. 

Following luncheon he spent an hour in his office 
alone, working out plans for the coming night. Or- 
ders then went out to the various unit headquarters 
and were passed down the line until they reached the 
trenches. 

Every afternoon, regardless of weather, General 
Haig went for a horseback ride. This is the recrea- 
tion he enjoys most. He does not care for motor 
cars and uses them only when it is necessary. The 
commander-in-chief's car, however, was known to 
everyone ; it was the only car at the front flying a small 
British flag. 

Returning from his ride, he held conferences until 
dinner. For most of the officers, w^ork was over then 
for the day, but not for General Haig. After dinner 
he went again to his office to pore over maps or else 
he walked alone in the garden with his problems 
of war. Less frequently he went to his room to 



MARSHAL HAIG 127 

read. He reads both French and German and still 
loves books, as in his college days. But whatever 
filled his evenings, he always retired at ten o'clock 
that he might keep himself physically fit for his 
work. 

General Haig is a tall, handsome man, with deep 
blue eyes and gray hair. He wears the plain uniform 
of a British field marshal, with spotlessly polished 
boots and silver spurs. Pinned to his coat is a row 
of colored service and order ribbons. Whether at 
work or on the battlefield he is always immaculately 
dressed. 

He was born of an aristocratic family, but educa- 
tion has made him a strong believer in democracy. 
Because he believes in democracy he does not think 
the war w^as altogether bad. It brought together in a 
common cause men of all classes from all parts of the 
world and gave them understanding of each other. 
From their comradeship, Haig believes, will come bet- 
ter ways of living and thinking. 

Throughout the war he was the hero of every Brit- 
ish Tommy. They called him affectionately " Duggy " 
or '' D. H. " Tommy Atkins likes a brave man and he 
knows that General Haig has experienced as much 
shell fire as any soldier in the ranks. Like Joffre, 
Haig used to pay visits to his men in the trenches, but 
there was this difference. Joffre, in talking to his 
soldiers, was one with them; Haig talked to them as 
though they were all generals. 



128 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

In March and April of 1918 came those dark days — 
the darkest Britain ever lived through — when the fate 
of the nation and of the world once more hung in the 
balance. The Germans began their great drives to 
end the war before America could throw her full 
strength on the side of the Allies. 

The history of the war shows that each battle sur- 
passed those which preceded it in the numbers of men 
engaged and in the amount of ammunition used, for 
the effort required was constantly greater in propor- 
tion as the resources of the armies increased. Now 
Germany meant to cast everything, all her resources 
of men and wealth, into the hazard of a last battle, to 
win or lose. 

The greatest secrecy covered the movements of the 
German army. The troop trains ran only at night 
and without lights, and during the day the troops re- 
mained hidden. The quantities of ammunition col- 
lected were literally mountain high. The men were 
again confident of victory. 

On the 21st of March the first blow fell against the 
British south of St. Quentin. The gray waves of the 
German advance rose and fell like the sea moving 
across the land, to which there was no end. The Brit- 
ish gunners fired point blank into the moving masses 
of men. They did not need to aim; they could not 
miss them. They fired for hours, for days, until their 
ammunition gave out and they fell exhausted, and still 
the gray waves came on. 

''Our men have been fighting for six days," wrote 



MARSHAL HAIG 129 

a British correspondent, ''until their beards have 
grown long and their faces haggard and worn for lack 
of sleep, and their clothes have become torn on wire 
and covered with dust of mud and chalk." 

The German losses were enormous. The ground 
was covered with the dead, but the ranks quickly 
filled and the great human tide flowed on. 

Almost with the first blow the British line had 
broken. Creeping up in the fog, the Germans had 
hurled themselves on the British Fifth Army and had 
separated it from the Third. The gap was finally filled 
and a serious disaster prevented, but the British were 
obliged to retreat further than they had planned. 
Then, with each attack, the line bent a little and a little 
more until a dent was made in it twenty miles deep, 
and many cities and hundreds of villages passed again 
into German hands. After ten days the first drive 
came to an end. 

The purpose had been to separate the British army 
from the French and destroy it, but, failing in this, 
the Germans began a second drive upon the British 
farther north. Now it was the old story of Ypres 
and the channel cities again. 

Greatly outnumbered, the British again fell back. 
What must have been their feeling to give up posi- 
tions that, a year before, had cost them half a million 
casualties to win ! The men wxre tired, so tired that 
they staggered and fell, and rose up and fought again 
like men moving in a dream. Whenever the oppor- 
tunity came they lay down in the ditches and by the 



I30 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

roadsides and in the open fields and slept, with the 
shells screaming overhead. They could hardly be 
wakened when their turn came to resist another at- 
tack. 

Could these tired men hold until support could reach 
them? In an order of the day, written on the 12th 
of April, Haig- rallied his men to the supreme effort. 

''Many amongst us are now tired. To those I 
would say that victory will belong to the side which 
holds out the longest. 

''The French army is moving rapidly and in great 
force to our support. 

'' There is no other course open to us but to fight it 
out. Every position must be held to the last man; 
there must be no retirement. With our backs to the 
wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each of 
us must fight on to the end." 

The last effort was " the greatest battle in the 
world." No men ever endured more than the British 
endured through all the month of April. When the 
situation was at its worst, Haig sent out the Grenadier, 
Irish, and Coldstream Guards to check the Germans 
until reserves could be brought up. In forty-eight 
hours the Australians would come. Some of the 
men were so exhausted that they could hardly stand. 
There was but one way in which they could hold out 
for fortv-eight hours — "each must fight on to the 
end." 

They fought in groups, in twos or threes, back to 
back and shooting in every direction. They were like 



MARSHAL HAIG 131 

men battling with the tide to prevent it from reaching 
the land. The Germans pressed them on all sides. 
One after another they fell. The hours never crept so 
slowly. For two days and nights the Guards held on. 
When the Australians came they found them still 
fighting, though the groups had dwindled sadly, and 
their own dead and wounded lay in circles around 
them. But this time they '' had held the longest," and 
the final victory was theirs. 



REFERENCES 

With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 

The Story of Ypres, Captain Hugh B. C. Pollard. 

Battle of the Somme, John Buchan. 

Battle of the Somme, Philip Gibbs. 

Nelson s History of the War, John Buchan. 

With the Flag to Pretoria, H. W. Wilson. 

An American at Oxford, John Corbin. 

General Haig, Man of War, Isaac F. Marcosson, Everybody's, 
June, 1917. 

Literary Digest, Sept. 15, 1917. 

The Greatest Battle in the World, Philip Gibbs, Current His- 
tory Magazine, June, 1918. 



VI. ADMIRAL BEATTY 

In 1896, when Kitchener went into the Sudan, one 
of the first things he did was to patch up some old gun- 
boats for service on the Nile. There were four of 
them to begin with, all stern-wheelers, and one called 
Abu Klea was commanded by a young lieutenant of 
the British navy named David Beatty. 

Beatty's father. Captain D. L. Beatty, was a famous 
sportsman. The family lived at Borodale, Wexford 
County, Ireland, but early in the year 1871 Captain 
Beatty's love of hunting took him to Chester County, 
England. Fox hunting was a favorite sport of the 
English gentry and Chester County was noted for 
its hounds. It was there that David Beatty was born. 
When he was thirteen, his father was offered a cadet- 
ship in the navy for his son and accepted. This is 
the age at which boys who are to become officers regu- 
larly enter the British navy. David Beatty had re- 
ceived an appointment but no further favors came his 
way. He got on solely by his own efforts. 

He was twenty-five when he went into the Sudan 
with Kitchener and it was his first active service. 
However dull was the soldier's life in the work of re- 
taking this vast desert country from the Arabs, life 
for the young naval officer was full of adventure. 

132 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 133 

Up and down the Nile the gunboats ran, sometimes a 
hundred miles in advance of the army, patrolling, re- 
connoitering, raiding, fighting. It was work which 
just suited David Beatty. 

About a thousand miles south of Cairo, Egypt, lies 
the town of Kerma. Until September of 1896 Kerma 
had been held by the Arabs, or Dervishes, and the 
British army had expected to find them still there when 
they marched into the town at daybreak one September 
morning. But to their surprise the enemy had disap- 
peared. Then it was discovered that, half a mile up 
the river and on the opposite bank, the Dervishes 
were entrenched in a position which the army could 
not possibly reach. Here was work for the gunboats. 
^ The Dervish camp was in a palm grove, on either 
side of which were impassable marshes, and along the 
river ran a loopholed mud wall. As the sun rose over 
the camp that morning, the British rubbed their eyes 
in astonishment, for the scene before them was like 
some tale from the Arabian Nights. From the para- 
pet flags of gorgeous colors waved defiantly against 
the sky. The Dervishes, men, women, and children, 
in white garments, ran in and out of their mud houses, 
busily preparing for battle. Riflemen had already 
taken their places in the palm trees along the river. 
Most of them were cleverly hidden but here and there 
one caught a flash of color against the dark green foli- 
age. In a wide plain behind the camp the Dervish 
cavalry was at maneuver practice, their spears glit- 
tering in the sunlight as they wheeled and turned. 



134 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Now the gunboats moved slowly up the river. The 
little flotilla comprised three of the old stern-wheelers, 
the Tamai, the Metemma, and Lieutenant Beatty's 
boat, the Ahu Klea. At a place called Hafir, just 
opposite the Dervish camp, they came within range 
of the enemy guns, and all at once the Dervishes let 
them have it. From every loophole in the long mud 
wall came a puff of smoke. Concealed batteries along 
the shore sent out their shells and from the palm trees 
fell a shower of bullets. They fell chiefly on the 
decks, where the men and guns were unprotected. 
They seemed to penetrate everywhere. There were 
a few casualties, but the gunboats steamed ahead. 
They were giving shell for shell and the shots were 
telling. The Egyptian infantry on board were pick- 
ing off the Dervish riflemen in the trees. Still they 
did not succeed in silencing the Dervish guns. 

A shell now struck the Abu Klea and entered her 
magazine, but fortunately it did not explode. On the 
other boats things were going badly. Commander 
Colvifle, chief oflicer of the little flotilla, was wounded 
and the Tamai withdrew from the fighting to carry 
her wounded commander ashore. Next the Metemma 
withdrew. Suffering terribly from the Dervish fire, 
she turned and ran downstream. Seeing two boats 
out of three abandon the battle, the Arabs believed 
that they had won a victory and loud cheering fol- 
lowed the Metemma as she disappeared. 

But the cheering soon died out, for the Ahu Klea 
remained. There was nothing Lieutenant Beatty 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 13S 

loved so much as a good fight. There was nothing he 
would not dare. After Commander Colville had been 
wounded Beatty was given the command of the flo- 
tilla, and he meant that the Dervishes should hear from 
him. Back and forth the Abu Klea steamed, lashing 
the water into foam, firing into the Dervish camp as 
fast as the men could load the guns. And all the while 
that she was fired upon in return, her young com- 
mander was thinking, as coolly as though he were 
working out the same problem at his desk in college, 
just how he would maneuver to avoid being blown to 
pieces before the job was done. After a time the 
Tamai returned and for two and a half hours more 
the battle went on. Then Kitchener decided to 
change his plans. He ordered Beatty to run, under 
fire, the passage of the river, which at this point was 
very narrow, and to advance as far as Dongola, 
thirty-six miles upstream. 

Dongola was to be the end of the campaign of that 
year. There Kitchener meant to wait until the rail- 
road had caught up with the army. All the fighting 
hitherto led to the taking of this town, and it was ex- 
pected that the Dervishes would make every efifort to 
hold it. 

When Lieutenant Beatty arrived he found the Der- 
vish army busily at work preparing for the defense of 
the town. They knew all about the fighting that had 
taken place the day before and were ready for the 
same kind of warfare. A row of batteries which 
lined the river front opened fire on the Abu Klea the 
moment she appeared. 



136 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Beatty had been told to ''keep the enemy busy" 
while the Anglo-Egyptian army advanced. In other 
words he was there to be shot at until relief came. 
It was the same old game of dodging shells, but so 
long as he was not hit, the Dervishes might shoot as 
much as they liked. 

Meanwhile he did some shooting on his own ac- 
count. He gave the enemy no rest. Day and night 
the old river boat chugged up and down, spitting fire. 
After a time several of the enemy batteries stopped 
firing. Soon others were silent. When there re- 
mained only one or two, Beatty, with a few men from 
the Abu Klea, landed and took the town. And when 
the army marched upon Dongola, expecting that one 
of the hardest battles of the year awaited them, it 
was Kitchener's own flag, a red star and crescent on 
a field of white, that waved over the governor's palace. 
Lieutenant Beatty had earned the Distinguished Ser- 
vice Order. 

The flotilla, which in the beginning had consisted of 
four old stern-wheelers, grew month by month. With 
the addition of river steamers, barges, and new mod- 
ern gunboats, it became a most important part in win- 
ning the Sudanese war. It did all sorts of things, but 
chiefly its business was to fight the Dervishes and to 
carry materials for Kitchener's railroad, food and 
munitions for the army. It is hard to say which of 
these two kinds of work had in it the most thrills, for 
transporting materials meant taking the boats over 
the cataracts of the Nile. 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 137 

The cataracts are a series of granite steps, often 
several miles in length, over which the water plunges 
with terrific speed and force ; at low water they are im- 
passable by all but the smallest craft. Five of them 
barred the passage to Khartum. Of these the fourth 
was the most difficult. Here huge boulders, protrud- 
ing from the water, broke the main direction of the 
current so that it was almost impossible to tell where 
the passage lay. Kitchener had been told that he 
would never get the boats over the Fourth Cataract, 
but he did not give up trying on that account. 

It was this task that he turned over to Lieutenant 
Beatty and a fellow officer. Lieutenant Hood. On a 
summer morning of 1897 the two officers arrived at 
the foot of the Fourth Cataract with two gunboats and 
a number of barges, carrying two hundred men from 
the Egyptian army, who were to help in pulling the 
boats upstream. Lieutenant Hood commanded the 
Tamai. Lieutenant Beatty had another of the old 
river boats called El Teh. 

The method of ascending the cataracts was for the 
steamer to drive full speed ahead, while the men on 
the shore, by means of cables attached to steel blocks, 
added their strength to that of the engines. The 
Tamai was the first to try the ascent. Plunging into 
the rapids she succeeded in making half the passage 
w^hen, by some mismanagement, the ropes gave way 
and she was spun about and was carried swiftly down- 
stream. It was thought that there had not been 
enough men to hold her and in order that the same 



138 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

misfortune might not happen again, three hundred 
more men were added to the force. 

This time the Teb was to make the trial. Proceed- 
ing as the Tamai had, she reached the same point in 
the passage, when a similar but far worse accident 
occurred. As she was suddenly swept around by the 
force of the current the cables, instead of releasing 
the boat, held, and the water came pouring over the 
decks, carrying everything with it. In a few seconds 
more the Teh turned completely over. Lieutenant 
Beatty and his men were thrown into midstream and 
carried below the rapids. One seaman was drowned. 
Two others were missing. The rest, including Lieu- 
tenant Beatty, were picked up by the Tamai at the foot 
of the cataract. Beatty's first thought was for his 
men. His second was for the boat. Where was she? 
From the Tamai they made her out, jammed in the 
rocks a mile below, to all appearances a complete 
wreck. Still there was a possibility that she might be 
saved, and Beatty proceeded at once to investigate. 

Only the bottom of the Teh was visible above the 
water; it was evident that nothing could be done for 
her. Having finished their examination, the officers 
were about to turn away, when they heard a knocking 
that appeared to come from the inside of the boat. 
Workmen were summoned, a plate was removed from 
the bottom, and out stepped the two missing men, the 
engineer and the stoker. Theirs had been, as a writer 
of the catastrophe remarks,^ '' a wild career." " With 

^ The River War, Winston Churchill. 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 139 

the boat turned upside down, the engines working, the 
fires burning, and the boilers full, with the floors all 
become ceilings, and water rushing in," they had been 
flung about in the darkness and by some miracle had 
managed to live. 

The two years that Beatty spent in the Sudan were 
full of experiences such as these. He fought in all 
the important battles of the campaign, both on land 
and water. There was no holding him back where 
there was a piece of dangerous work to be done. His 
courage was of the cool, calculating kind; in the midst 
of excitement or confusion he never lost sight of the 
thing he had to do. All up and down the Nile men 
talked about his daring. 

" Why won't Kitchener let the gunboats above Shab- 
luka (the Fifth Cataract) ? " a young lieutenant of the 
army asked one day as he discussed the campaign 
with fellow officers. 

''Because Beatty would take Khartum," another 
officer promptly replied. 

This was probably an injustice to Kitchener, but it 
shows what the army thought of Beatty. 

Kitchener himself was of the opinion that Beatty 
was a rare young officer. He mentioned him repeat- 
edly in dispatches to the war office. He recommended 
him for promotion. At twenty-seven Beatty was a 
commander, and two years later he was on his way to 
China to fight in a new war and to win new honors. 

The war in China which broke out in June of 1900 
is known as the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers were 



I40 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

members of a Chinese secret society which was sup- 
posed to be an athletic organization, but which really 
existed for the purpose of doing away with foreigners 
and foreign customs. " China for the Chinese," was 
their motto; it was a motto which covered many ter- 
rible crimes. Foreigners, especially Christians, were 
robbed, cruelly tortured, and murdered. In the cities 
of Pekin and Tientsin, foreigners of all nationalities 
were besieged. Crowded into the foreign quarters, 
with food enough to delay starvation only a few weeks, 
not knowing at what moment they might be killed, 
they waited rescue from the world outside. 

The result of these happenings was the speedy ap- 
pearance of allied warships at the mouth of the Peiho 
River, the water highway to the besieged cities. All 
the nations having fleets stationed at that time in 
Chinese waters were represented, England, France, 
Italy, Russia, Japan, Germany, Austria, and the 
United States. One of the ships, called the Barfleur, 
was commanded by David Beatty. 

A relief expedition was immediately formed to go 
to the rescue of the besieged foreigners. At first it 
consisted of a small force of two thousand officers and 
men, chiefly British, of which Commander Beatty and 
his bluejackets formed a part. Later Russian, Jap- 
anese, French, and American troops joined. It was 
this combined force of five thousand men that stormed 
and took the city of Tientsin. 

Two days before the relief column reached Tientsin, 
the city had been set on fire by the Chinese and the 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 141 

railroad destroyed. For the foreigners who remained 
there was now no escape and every day brought the 
fear of a general massacre. Then, one night, a young 
Englishman living in Tientsin escaped through the 
Chinese lines and carried to the allied forces word of 
the desperate situation in the city. He implored them 
to advance with all possible speed. 
^ Tientsin is a walled city and strongly fortified. It 
lies on the western bank of the Peiho River. Up this 
river the relief party fought its way until it reached 
a point on the eastern bank opposite the city. The 
Chinese, having guessed that the relief party would 
attempt to reach the foreign quarter, had placed two 
field guns near a railway embankment outside, where 
they commanded the crossing of the river. It was 
impossible to reach the city in face of the fire from 
these guns. At this point Commander Beatty and his 
three companies of bluejackets were ordered to cross 
the river and see what they could do about silencing 
these guns. It was work that Beatty was used to, 
silencing guns, but this time there were serious dif^- 
culties in his way. Crossing the Peiho under heavy 
fire, he succeeded in reaching the Chinese positions 
and advanced to within two hundred yards of the 
guns. With the help of some Russian troops, who 
were moving up at the same time, he intended to rush 
the guns. While he waited for the Russians to ad- 
vance, he halted with his little band of bluejackets 
near one of the mud walls that surrounded the city. 
He did not know that behind that wall the Chinese 



142 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

had watched the approach and only waited the order 
to fire. As he stopped in what he supposed was a place 
of shelter, the bullets suddenly leaped out from all di- 
rections. The Russians withdrew, but the British 
held on. The fire was deadly. Four officers and sev- 
eral men fell. Beatty himself was wounded twice. 

It was his particular kind of courage that saved 
him that day. He might have gone on and given his 
life splendidly, but he saw clearly enough that to do 
so would not take the guns. The British had not a 
chance. The only reasonable thing was to withdraw 
and he gave the command. This was Beatty, 
wounded, in danger every moment of being killed, yet 
coolly thinking the situation out to a sensible end. 

It was on the 19th of June that this happened. The 
13th of July found Beatty in action again, though his 
wounds had not yet healed. The relief expedition 
had not yet taken Tientsin. They held several 
strong positions, however, on the western bank. One 
of them was a group of houses situated in the 
middle of the causeway that was the main approach 
to the city. It was an important position, which the 
Japanese and the French had great difficulty in hold- 
ing on account of the terrific fire of the Chinese. 
When it seemed that they could not hold much longer 
they saw that help was coming. Beatty and his blue- 
jackets had started to cross the causeway. 

Advancing along the narrow road, the men were un- 
able to spread out and the bullets caught them. 
Though many were wounded, they bravely pushed on 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 143 

and reached the houses they were to defend, only to 
find them so full of men that there was no room for 
more. The only shelter was a ditch by the side of the 
causeway. Standing in water to their knees, without 
food, exposed to the unceasing fire of the guns, this 
little force held throughout a hot, sultry summer day 
and an interminable night until the city of Tientsin 
fell at sunrise the next morning. 

The conduct of Commander Beatty on this occasion 
was brought to the notice of the British Admiralty by 
Admiral Seymour, commander of the expedition. In 
his report he says: ''Commander David Beatty, 
D. S. O. of H. M. S. Barflcur, although suffering from 
two wounds only partially healed, one of which is 
likely to cause him considerable suffering and incon- 
venience for some time, begged to be allowed to accom- 
pany the expedition of the relief forces under my 
command. He is thoroughly deserving of any mark 
of appreciation." 

The ''mark of appreciation" was promotion to a 
captaincy. At twenty-nine, Beatty was the youngest 
captain in the British navy. 

Coming now to the great European w^ar, it is neces- 
sary to go back as far as the year 1890 in order to un- 
derstand the parts the British and German navies were 
to play. That year the Kaiser, who had been em- 
peror of Germany but a short time, paid a visit to 
England to witness the practice maneuvers of the 
British fleet. What those practice maneuvers 
proved was that, given a start of twenty-four hours, 



144 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

an enemy fleet could easily escape the British and, 
once at large in the Atlantic, control the trade routes 
to England. Whether this discovery actually deter- 
mined the Kaiser's future action, one cannot know. 
At any rate, it was soon after this that Germany began 
the building of her great navy, which she hoped would 
one day rival Britain's. 

The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea with the 
Baltic, was already in the process of construction. 
This canal not only shortened Germany's trade routes 
by hundreds of miles but allowed great freedom of 
movement to her fleet. It was begun in 1887 and com- 
pleted in 1895 while Germany's navy was still small. 
Eleven years later, in 1906, when the German fleet had 
grown to such a size that it might feel hopeful of mak- 
ing war use of the Kiel Canal, England launched a 
new t3^pe of battleship called the dreadnought. It 
was the largest battleship ever built, so large, in fact, 
that it could not pass through the Kiel Canal. Con- 
sequently, before Germany could ever hope to fight 
Britain with dreadnoughts, she must first rebuild the 
Kiel Canal. This she did; the new canal, deepened 
and widened, was completed in June, 1914. 

It was also in 1890 that Germany traded with Brit- 
ain the island of Zanzibar, a fertile and populous island 
off the east coast of Africa, for the little rocky island 
of Heligoland near the entrance to the Kiel Canal. 
The British said of this transfer that they had traded 
a button for a good pair of trousers. But the Ger- 
mans thought differently. If they had got only a 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 145 

button, they said, it would some day hold together a 
whole suit of armor. Germany began immediately 
to fortify her new possession. At the cost of millions 
of dollars she made of it a second Gibraltar. 

It happened that in the latter part of July, 1914, the 
British fleet had been reviewed by the King and was 
preparing to demobilize, when an order came from the 
Admiralty that thrilled every man. The order was 
to " stand fast." Austria had delivered her impos- 
sible terms to Serbia and war seemed about to break 
over all Europe. The Admiralty's order came none 
too soon. At 11 p.m. on the 4th of August Germany 
declared war on England and at daybreak the next 
morning the Kdnigen Luise, formerly a passenger 
ship of the Hamburg-American line, was caught 
planting mines along the English coast. She was 
sunk by a British ship ; the navy had been ready. 

The ofreat work of the British navv in the war was 
to patrol the seas of the world. Everywhere, to the 
remotest corners of the earth, her ships sailed to guard 
lives and cargoes, but most important was the patrol- 
ling of the North Sea. Immediately upon the decla- 
ration of war Britain's dreadnoughts moved out to 
block the passage between Norway and the British 
Isles and prevent the German fleet from reaching 
the Atlantic. And every now and then they would 
leave their stations to sweep the whole North Sea. 
This was an invitation to the German fleet to come out 
to fight, but the Germans, for the most part, chose 
to remain in hiding. But three times during the four 



146 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

and a half years of war did they make their appear- 
ance. 

The first time was soon after the war began, on the 
28th of August, 1914. It was not a big battle, as 
sea battles go, but it excited the interest of people 
everywhere because it was the first naval engagement 
since the great naval battle of the Japanese-Russian 
war in 1904. In that battle wireless telegraphy was 
used for the first time, but there were no submarines, 
no airplanes, no battle cruisers, no dreadnoughts. 
All of these new instruments of war had developed 
within ten years. No wonder then that people waited 
with such great interest for the time when these two 
giant fleets would meet. 

The battle of the 28th of August was called the 
battle of Heligoland Bight. Bight is another name 
for bay and Heligoland Bay was an immense mine 
field protecting Germany's ports, as well as the har- 
bor for her submarines. The British had come down 
into this enemy territory, in all probability, to deliver 
one of their invitations to the German fleet to come 
out. It was Beatty who commanded the British 
squadron. He was a vice-admiral now, the youngest 
admiral in the navy as he had once been the youngest 
captain, and he was still the daring fighter. If it 
had not been for that other quality of his mind, a cool 
and reasoning judgment, he would probably have at- 
tempted to destroy the German submarine bases, for 
that was what he wanted most to do. He called these 
little expeditions of his battle cruiser squadron " barg- 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 147 

ing about the North Sea," and this time he had 
" barged " right under the nose of HeHgoland. 

The German cruiser squadron had to come out. 
There was a spirited fight, in which the British sank 
three German battle cruisers and several destroyers 
and got away without serious losses on their own part. 

The battle of Heligoland Bight, although it in- 
flicted heavy losses on the Germans, was a disappoint- 
ment to people who had expected a great sea fight. 
The giant dreadnoughts were not used at all. They 
had yet to prove whether they were worth the millions 
upon millions of dollars they had cost. The truth 
was the Germans were not ready. For two years they 
had stayed at home preparing. Meanwhile Beatty 
and his cruiser squadron continued to "barge about 
the North Sea," always hoping to meet the enemy. 

Throughout the entire period of sea warfare it was 
Sir John Jellicoe and not Sir David Beatty who com- 
manded the British fleet. In time of battle it is the 
commander-in-chief who directs the strongest unit of 
the navy, the squadron of dreadnoughts, but it hap- 
pened that the dreadnoughts came into action only 
once. Practically all of the fighting was done by the 
lighter ships, so that Admiral Beatty, as commander 
of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, actually com- 
manded in all of the battles fought in the North Sea. 
Following the last and greatest, the battle of Jutland, 
he was himself made commander-in-chief. 

Like all great commanders. Sir David Beatty is will- 
, ing to talk of his men but never of himself. His men. 



148 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

on the other hand, are always ready to talk about hhn. 
They will tell ytni, for one thing, that if yon think an 
admiral's job is easy, you do not know how Beatty 
works. At the end of the first seven months of war, 
he had spent just two hours with his family. Many 
days he had worked the twenty-four hours through. 
They will tell you that, whenever there is fighting to 
be done, he is always in the thick of it, as often ex- 
posed to fire as a stoker or deck hand. They call him 
"David," sometimes ''Lucky Beatty." He is so 
lucky that once when a thief stole all his medals, he 
dropped them when he found out whose they were. 

Officers and bluejackets alike would die for Beatty 
to the last man. His kindness, his humor, his fear- 
lessness, have made him, as one officer expressed it, 
'' the idol of every man in the squadron." 

Lady Beatty is an American by birth. There are 
two sons, David and Peter, thirteen and eleven years 
of age. David probably will follow his father's pro- 
fession. He already speaks several languages and is 
an authority on the organization of the Grand Fleet. 
In his playroom he has a model submarine that 
really dives, a small ship Tiger with turrets that turn, 
a baby tank, and little dock cranes that revolve and lift 
weights like real ones. 

On Sunday morning, the 24th of January, 1915, 
Admiral Beatty was cruising with his squadron off 
the east coast of England, when, far out on the hori- 
zon, he saw ten German ships moving northwest. 
There w^as no doubt in his mind about what these ves- 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 149 

sels meant to do. They were on their way to bombard 
the coast cities of England, as they had done twice be- 
fore. Every man in Beatty's squadron knew just how 
many wTjmen and children had been killed in these 
bombardments and they had sworn that such a thing 
should not happen again. On this occasion Admiral 
Beatty had heard that the '' Germans were out," and 
had pledged himself to catch them. 

When first sighted the German ships appeared very 
small, for they were fourteen miles away. They were 
really great battle cruisers, traveling at a high rate of 
speed. Suddenly they w^ere seen to change their 
course. Having discovered the British ships, they 
had decided to give up shelling the English coast cities 
and go home. But home was one hundred twenty 
miles away, and Admiral Beatty was out for them. 

Immediately on sighting the enemy, the bugles on all 
the British ships had sounded " action stations." 
Every man took his place for battle and the order was 
" full speed ahead." All rested now with the en- 
gineers. The ships shook and trembled in every beam 
as the stokers and oilers and greasers did their ut- 
most to increase the speed The Germans also were 
doing their utmost. They had not counted on a fight, 
but, little by little, the British gained on them. Those 
who saw it said it was a glorious race. It had begun 
about seven o'clock. In less than two hours the Brit- 
ish were within battle range, and shortly the first shot 
was fired. 

From the bridge of his flagship, the Lion, Admiral 



I50 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 



Beatty had made his observations and given his or- 
ders, and there he remained during the fighting. 
When the fighting began it was give and take with 
both sides. " Shells went over our ships," said a sur- 
geon on the British cruiser Tiger, " with a noise like 
a lot of bees buzzing and dropped in hundreds about a 
hundred yards all around us, throwing up spray all 
over the ship." Two of the German cruisers were 
soon in flames; a third, the Blilchcr, largest of them 
all, was sinking. 

Two British cruisers were also hit. Admiral 
Beatty's own ship, the Lion, and the Tiger. These 
two ships, as famous as any in the British navy, fought 
in all the battles of the war and endured shell fire 
such as few ships in all the history of naval battles 
have ever known. 

A shell now came crashing into the Lion, tearing a 
hole in one of her compartments, which quickly filled 
with water. This caused one of her engines to stop. 
An examination showed that the damage could not be 
repaired at sea, and the Lion was obliged to fall out of 
the line of battle. But her trials were not yet over. 
Just as Admiral Beatty was preparing to transfer his 
flag to another ship, a second shell struck the Lion. 
This was serious. Although the Lion was afterwards 
able to make port under her own steam, the second 
shell delayed Beatty further from directing the battle. 
In too great a hurry to consider his own safety he 
jumped from the cruiser to the deck of the destroyer 
which was to carry him to another ship. It required 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 



151 



y^ 

H 










"^t 






'7 ' t ^^'-^ ■< 



Vf^ 1.^ 




4 















W^- 



i 

Admiral Beatty 






^.?i;;.T-^ 



152 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

three quarters of an hour running at top speed to 
catch up with the fighting cruisers, and it was only a 
Httle later that the battle ended. This engagement is 
called the battle of Dogger Bank, Dogger Bank being 
the name of a large shoal in the North Sea near the 
scene of the battle. 

One great German cruiser, with her 885 officers and 
men, had gone down. A few men had been taken 
prisoner; many more had been wounded. The Brit- 
ish casualties were slight, less than 50. Many 
stories of heroism could be told of both the British 
and the Germans. Admiral Beatty publicly praised 
his men and awarded medals to those who had distin- 
guished themselves for bravery. He recalled to them 
in verse what always happened when the Lion and the 
Tiger went out to fight : 

" There's beauty in the howling of a gale, 
There's a beauty in the bellow of the blast ; 
There's a terrible outpouring 
When the Liofi starts a-roaring, 
And the Tiger starts a-lashing of its tail." 

It was scarcely six months after this that the 
Lion was to start roaring again in the greatest naval 
battle of the war. On the last day of May, 1916, the 
British fleet was on one of its regular patrols of the 
North Sea. Three long lines of ships, reaching from 
England to Denmark, were spread across the water. 
The faster and smaller ships, such as destroyers and 
auxiliary flotillas, went ahead; next came the fast 
cruisers and the battle cruisers, and last the squadron 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 153 

of great dreadnoughts. Admiral Beatty, on the Lion, 
led with the First Battle Cruiser Squadron. The fleet 
was traveling south and had just reached a point off 
the coast of Denmark called Jutland Bank, when word 
came from the advance destroyers that the German 
Battle Cruiser Squadron was on the sea. 

At once Admiral Beatty changed his course to get 
between the enemy and the home waters of Heligoland 
Bay. It was twenty minutes past two in the after- 
noon. The day was so hazy that ships could not be 
seen farther than six miles and a seaplane was or- 
dered up to make observations. Flying low to keep 
between the sea and the drifting clouds, the observer 
had scarcely come within sight of the German squad- 
ron when every anti-aircraft gun opened fire on him. 
He coolly continued with his observations and just 
twenty-two minutes after he had left his ship, his re- 
ports were in Admiral Beatty's hands. A line of 
battle was now formed, and in another five minutes 
the enemy was in sight. 

The situation was like this : Both the German and 
the British battle cruiser squadrons, with their de- 
stroyer flotillas, were traveling south in nearly paral- 
lel lines, but, hidden behind a screen of smoke and 
mist to the north and east of the German cruiser 
squadron, lay the fleet of German dreadnoughts called 
the High Sea Fleet. The plan of the Germans was to 
draw Beatty's cruiser squadrons into battle with the 
whole German fleet and destroy it before Admiral 
Jellicoe with his dreadnoughts could get there. 



154 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

As yet Admiral Beatty was unaware of the presence 
of the German High Sea Fleet. He had his problems 
without this. Standing on the bridge, as usual, he 
directed the maneuvers of his ships to give the best 
light for firing and to allow the wind to clear the fir- 
ing field of smoke. 

When a battleship goes into action, of course no man 
knows whether he will come out alive or not. All the 
safety devices that are ordinarily used in a wreck at 
sea, such as lifeboats, rafts, and life preservers are 
put away, because in battle there is no time to use 
them. Even when a ship is hit, there is no way of 
telling whether or not it will sink. The men know 
this. They are there to fight. They simply do their 
work and do not worry about the consequences. A 
boy from the Warspite, a battleship which saw some of 
the heaviest fighting, tells what it felt like to be going 
into this greatest of naval battles:^ 

'' I did not see much of what took place during the 
fighting," he says. ''None of the men could, for with 
the exception of some of the officers, the signal ratings, 
and a few of the men, there was no one in the battle- 
ship exposed. We were all in the barbettes or below 
decks. But news travels quickly from the upper decks 
and it was in this manner that we knew what was tak- 
ing place. 

''Did I feel nervous? No. Of course, after 
' general quarters ' was sounded in the Warspite, we 

1 Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in the Great War, Harold 
F. B. Wheeler. 



ADMIK\L BEATTY 155 

were some time before getting in action and there was 
a tight feeling when we were standing by, waiting 
for the first gun to be fired. We all knew our stations 
when the bugle sounded. T^Iine was to draw a fire. 
I did so and then nipped for the magazine where I was 
to work and I stuck there. Even in that place you 
could tell that the JJ\irspitc was steaming at her best, 
and inquiries up the hoist were pretty frequent. 

" The men about me did their work and made jokes. 
It was not as if we were going into battle. It seemed 
to me as if we were going to do something at last that 
we had been waiting a long time for, — like playing a 
football cup-tie, when vou are waiting to enter the 
field." 

The two lines of battleships, steaming at top speed, 
"entered the field" exactly at twelve minutes to four, 
British and German cruisers opening fire at the same 
time. A few minutes later, several British destroy- 
ers darted out to attack the big German cruisers with 
torpedoes. They were met by enemy destroyers and 
a fierce battle took place between them, from which the 
enemy was finally obliged to retire. 

Hundreds of shells were now flying through the 
air. The sea, which a few moments before had been 
perfectly calm, was lashed and churned by the ships 
steaming at high speed, and in all directions giant 
fountains, caused by shells bursting in the water, 
spouted, often as high as the ships' masts. The noise 
was deafening. One broadside followed another as 
fast as the gunners could fire. Streaks of flame 



156 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

flashed against the sky whenever a shell struck a 
ship, followed by dense clouds of smoke and showers 
of dust and white-hot splinters of steel. The various 
chemicals used in the shells produced smoke of all 
colors, blue, green, yellow, black, and soon the air was 
so filled with it that it was impossible to tell one's own 
ships from the enemy's. 

Now and then a shell penetrated a magazine and a 
terrific explosion occurred. Sometimes a ship broke 
completely in two, as did the Queen Mary; some- 
times, when several shells hit at once, all that 
was left of a giant cruiser was a floating mass of 
wreckage. The sea was strewn with wreckage and 
with men clinging to floating bits of wood, waiting 
their chances of rescue. In places it also had the 
appearance of being solid or congealed, because there 
floated upon the water myriads of fish, killed by the 
shells. 

All this whirlwind of destruction descended upon 
the British when the smoke screen lifted and revealed 
the German High Sea Fleet. The fighting before 
was as nothing to that which came after. Twenty-six 
minutes after the battle opened Admiral Beatty dis- 
covered that he had arrayed against him all the forces 
of the German navy. Badly outnumbered, he turned 
north to lead the Germans "into the jaws of the 
Grand Fleet." It was at the turn where the British 
cruisers received broadsides from all the German 
dreadnoughts that most of the tragedies of the battle 
occurred. Three cruisers went down, the Indefati- 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 



157 



gahle, the Queen Mary, and the Invincible. Nearly 
every British ship was hit. The Lion and the Tiger 
suffered terribly. Twenty German ships fired upon 
the Tiger at once and the Lion received almost as 
many shells. Once it was thought that she had gone 
down. Her wireless had been shot away and she did 
not respond to call. But she had not gone down, as 
the Germans afterwards discovered, for Admiral 
Beatty was leading them as fast as high-speed ships 
could travel toward the British Grand Fleet. 

At ^Y^ o'clock the fighting still continued fiercely, 
and now the weather conditions changed, which added 
greatly to the Germans' advantage. Clouds of mist 
began to drift in among the German ships, completely 
masking them, while the British fleet was plainly out- 
lined against a clear sky. Three more of Admiral 
Beatty's ships were put out of action ; with those re- 
maining, six battle cruisers and four battleships, he 
fought the entire German navy until Admiral Jelli- 
coe's dreadnoughts came within range at seven o'clock 
that evening. At this stage of the battle it is thought 
that both Zeppelins and German submarines took part, 
but no one seems to have known for certain. 

As night came on and it grew too dark for the big 
battleships to fire effectively, the destroyers again took 
up the battle. Stealing out in the darkness, both the 
British and the Germans attempted to get near enough 
to enemy battleships to send their torpedoes crashing 
into them. They soon discovered each other's pres- 
ence and fought at close range. The play of gunfire 



158 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

on the black sky and water made this one of the most 
spectacular parts of the battle. Men who saw them 
say ''there are no finer tales of the sea than the sto- 
ries of these destroyers/' In all, the British lost 
twelve, the Germans twenty. 

Speed played a very important part in the battle of 
Jutland, the speed which Admiral Beatty's cruiser 
squadron maintained throughout, and the speed with 
which Admiral Jellicoe's dreadnoughts appeared. 
The Germans had not expected them quite so soon, or 
they would probably have withdrawn. Until then, 
however, they dared not withdraw. Although they 
greatly outnumbered the British, they had not yet 
won the battle, and this fact would not appear very 
well to the people at home. 

It was the appearance of the British Grand Fleet 
that convinced them it was time to go home, and they 
slipped away in the darkness and mist. Though the 
British gave chase that night and the next morning 
searched every corner of the North Sea, they found 
no trace of the German fleet. Much to their disap- 
pointment this was the way the battle ended. 

The Germans had gone home to announce a great 
naval victory, and this, the first word of the battle of 
Jutland, was flashed all over the world. 

'' The English Fleet is Beaten " ran the headlines in 
all the German newspapers, and the Kaiser publicly 
thanked his sailors for having ''broken England's in- 
vincibility on the seas." The Germans said they had 
lost one old battleship that they did not care about any- 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 159 

how, four cruisers, and five destroyers, ten ships in all. 

Judged by the losses which Admiral Beatty re- 
ported, it did look like a German victory. The British 
people themselves believed at first that they had been 
defeated. But when official count was taken of the 
losses on both sides, it was found that Germany's cer- 
tain losses were 119,200 tons, her probable losses 
174,000 while Britain's amounted to 113,317 tons. 

" Sir David Beatty once again showed his fine qual- 
ities of gallant leadership, firm determination, and 
correct strategic insight," were the first words of 
Admiral Jellicoe's dispatch concerning the battle of 
Jutland. His men thought so, too, although they 
would probably have said he had showed once more 
how he could fight. As the Lion, homeward bound, 
steamed past other ships, less speedy or more disabled 
than herself, the men lined up and sent cheers of 
'^ Bravo, David," ringing through the air. 

It was the Lion, too, which led into port the scarred 
and battered fleet, her ensign proudly flying although 
a part of it had been shot away. The appearance of the 
ships spoke for what they had been through. Great 
holes had been torn in them, their armor had been 
ripped, their funnels smashed, their turrets crumpled 
and dented. The officers and men were worn out. 
The strain they had undergone had been almost be- 
yond endurance and they had not slept for sixty hours. 

On the pier a great crowd had waited all night to 
greet them. They were chiefly women, wives and 
mothers of the men of the fleet. Among them was 



l6o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Lady David Beatty, waiting to learn the fate of her 
husband. 

As yet, the crowd did not know that the fleet had 
won a victory, but of one thing they were certain — 
the splendid tradition of the British navy had been up- 
held. The ships themselves bore evidence of that, 
and cheer after cheer went up, as, one after another, 
they steamed slowly into harbor. 

''We drew the enemy into the jaws of the fleet," 
wrote Admiral Beatty of the battle of Jutland. ''I 
have no regrets except for the lives and pals that have 
gone, and who died gloriously .... We are ready 
for the next time. May it come soon." 

Two years later, on the 21st of November, 1918, the 
rival fleets of Britain and Germany met for the last 
time. It was the day of the great surrender. From 
the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland the 
Grand Fleet moved out to meet the High Sea Fleet and 
escort it to its final resting place in the Orkney Islands. 
The first British ship weighed anchor at two in the 
morning. The last, Admiral Beatty's flagship, the 
Queen Elizabeth, left the harbor at six. Between two 
and six Admiral Beatty kept in touch with the entire 
fleet by wireless. Not a ship changed speed or moved 
out of line without his permission, for he still feared 
some trickery on the part of the Germans. Two hun- 
dred forty ships formed this convoy, and with them 
went several others, a French cruiser and several de- 
stroyers, and the five American battleships that had 



ADMIRAL BEATTY l6l 

constituted the Sixth Battle Squadron of the Grand 
Fleet. They moved in one long line, stretching end- 
lessly seaward, until they approached the meeting 
place, when they formed a double line to receive the 
German fleet in their midst. 

There was not a sign of life in all this vast company 
of gray ships. '' General quarters " was sounded at 
seven-thirty and the men stood ready for action. 
They waited only the flashing of a signal to give gun 
for gun if the enemy should fire upon them. Admiral 
Beatty meant to take no chances. 

The men worked silently. They did not especially 
enjoy the mission upon which they had come. They 
were eager to see the meeting of these two great na- 
vies, for no occasion had ever brought together such 
a vast number of ships, and they were eager to take 
part in an event which they knew would be counted 
among the greatest of history, but they did not like 
this kind of surrender. For a navy to give itself up 
without having fought was not sportsmanship. They 
felt as if their own profession were being dishonored. 

To the Germans it must have been a monstrous trag- 
edy, for it marked the end of the sea power of a great 
nation. The fleet had been their pride for thirty 
years. The ships were as fine as any of Britain's and 
they were going to be surrendered. They had become 
symbols of great power misused. 

The day had started cold and cloudy. Then, al- 
most with the coming of the sun, the British had their 
first sight of the fleet for which they had searched four 



l62 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

long years. The light cruiser Cardiff, towing a kite 
balloon, met the enemy and marshaled her prisoners 
into position. After an old custom of the navy the 
Cardiff signaled Admiral Beatty on the Queen Eliz- 
abeth: "Unknown number of unknown ships, steam- 
ing line ahead." 

First came the German cruiser Seydlitc, a veteran 
of Jutland. The Friedrich der Crosse, flagship of 
the fleet, flew for the last time the imperial battle flag, 
a black cross on a white field. Then followed a line 
of cruisers, battleships, light cruisers, and destroyers 
that extended so far across the North Sea that its end 
could nowhere be seen. 

Slowly they advanced between the British lines, 
and, as they reached a point even with Admiral 
Beatty's flagship, the British ships all at once swung 
round with beautiful precision and began the home- 
ward journey. 

The Queen Elizabeth now led. From her masthead 
floated Admiral Beatty's mascot, the powder-black- 
ened and tattered ensign which the Lion had borne 
through Jutland battle. Immediately following came 
the Oak, Admiral Beatty's destroyer. The First 
Battle Cruiser Squadron was there too, the Lion and 
the Tiger steaming well ahead. Above, a guard of 
seaplanes dipped and circled. 

At May Island in the Firth of Forth the enemy fleet 
dropped anchor for the night. The next day it would 
be taken to the Orkney Islands. In a great semi-circle 
lay the British ships which guarded it. And now 



ADMIRAL BEATTY 163 

came the very end of a nation's tragedy. Admiral 
Beatty's order had read : " The German flag will be 
lowered at smiset and will not be hoisted again without 
permission." The bugles rang out. The hour of 
sunset sounded and slowly the ensign of the German 
Empire fluttered down from the masthead, never to 
be raised again. There was no cheering on the part 
of the British. It was not the sort of victory for 
which one cheers. 

There had been a different scene on Admiral 
Beatty's flagship. With the first note of the sunset 
bugle every man had turned and saluted the British 
flag: then three rousing cheers for the commander-in- 
chief echoed across the water. Admiral Beatty stood 
in the ship's stern. He faced his men. ''Thank 
you," he said simply. Then the men scattered to take 
up their work, but in the five minutes that had elapsed 
the great war on the sea had come to an end. 

REFERENCES 

The River War, Winston Churchill. 

With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 

China and the Powers, H. C. Thomson. 

Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in the Great War, Harold 

F.' B. Wheeler. 
The British Navy in the World War, John Leyland. 
Admiral David Beatty, Kansas City Times, Dec. 30, 1916. 
Battle of Jutland, Literary Digest, June 24, 1916. 
Battle of Jutland, Fortnightly Review, Aug., 1916. 
The Great Battle in the North Sea, John Leyland, Nineteenth 

Century, Aug., 1916. 



i64 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The Great North Sea Battle, Scientific American, June 17, 

1916. 
Report on Battle of Jutland, Admiral David Beatty. 
Glimpses of the Jutland Battle, Literary Digest, June 17, 1916. 
Watching the Great Surrender, F. Perrot, Living Age, Jan. 4, 

1919. 



VII. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 

In the village of Llanystumdwy in Wales lived a 
cobbler by the name of Richard Lloyd. He lived 
alone in a small house of two stories with his cob- 
bler's shop adjoining. He was a quiet man who said 
very little about what he was going to do, but one 
day he closed his shop and went on a journey. When 
he returned he brought with him his widowed sister 
and her three children. 

The eldest of these, David Lloyd George, was then 
little more than three years old. He had been born 
in Manchester, England, but, on account of his 
father's failing health, the family had moved to a 
farm in south Wales. There his father had died. A 
sale of the farm and household goods barely paid the 
debts and the family would have been homeless and 
destitute but for the coming of his uncle. 

It was something of a sacrifice for Richard Lloyd 
to take his sister and her children into his home, for 
his earnings did not much more than supply his own 
needs. They would have to live very frugally. There 
was a small garden back of the house where a few 
vegetables could be grown. Once or twice a week 
they managed to afford a little meat, and for a treat 
the children had each half an Qgg for Sunday morn- 

165 



i66 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

ing breakfast. In the kitchen David's mother was 
always thinking and planning how she could save a 
six-pence a week. 

The house was a plain workman's cottage of stone. 
A sign hung over the entrance door on which was 
painted a boot and the words, " Richard Lloyd, Shoe- 
maker.'' 

Inside one large room served all the purposes of 
kitchen and living room. It had a stone floor, a wood 
ceiling, and a large fireplace, which made it appear 
very inviting and comfortable. It was always scru- 
pulously neat. Across the hall was a tiny parlor, 
used only for company and special occasions. A nar- 
row wooden stairway led to the bedroom above. 
Such was the new home to which David Lloyd George 
had come. 

It was clear from the first that young David was 
to become either a preacher or a public speaker. He 
began his career shortly after coming to Llanystum- 
dwy. Mounting the pulpit, which in those days was 
the stairs, he preached to a small congregation made 
up of his brother and his sister. As it proved some- 
what difficult to hold the attention of his hearers, he 
used " to thump on the stairs with a stick " in order 
to drive his points home. 

When he was six he entered the village school. 
Here he was fortunate in having as headmaster a 
man of education, who encouraged his liking for 
study. He was taught reading, writing, and arith- 
metic, with some geography and history. Though he 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 167 

was far from being a model pupil he was a very clever 
one. It was easy for him to learn. He had only to 
read a page once to have it and he never forgot what 
he learned. 

Three times on Simday and once during the week 
he went with his uncle to chapel. Richard Lloyd was 
a Baptist, and as there was no church of that denom- 
ination in Llanystumdwy, he attended at Criccieth, a 
town two miles distant. On these walks David used 
to discdss the sermons he had heard and comment on 
the way in which the}^ had been presented. He 
longed for the time to come when he would be old 
enough to take part in the mid-week meetings. His 
uncle, pleased at the boy's interest, led him on. He 
liked to discover his opinions. Above everything, he 
wanted David to learn to think for himself. 

In spite of school and chapel there was plenty of 
time for out of doors. The favorite game of the 
winter months was bandy (hockey) ; in summer it was 
ball and hide and seek. When the Franco-Prussian 
war came in 1870, the boys of Llanystumdwy divided 
themselves into French and Prussians and fought it 
out. 

Another amusement in which they engaged was 
continually getting them into trouble, for legally it 
was a crime. This was poaching. The little river 
that ran through the village was filled with trout and 
salmon, but fishing was forbidden by the rich people 
living on the estates, who had stocked the river for 
their own pleasure, as they had also stocked the woods 



l68 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

with game. Though they employed many keepers to 
guard their pleasure grounds, it was perfectly well 
known that some of the villagers occasionally enjoyed 
a supper of trout or hare. 

Probably David was not one of the boys who 
poached. His uncle would hardly have permitted 
that, but the fact that he might not fish in the river 
that ran through his own village made a strong im- 
pression on his mind. 

Following the stream into the country beyond, he 
came upon another condition that seemed to him very 
unfair. Here were the large estates of the gentry, 
with their parks and meadows and woodlands, and 
right next to them the small stony farms of the peas- 
antry, which hardly yielded a living. It was these 
conditions, together with the simple life of the vil- 
lage, that fixed from his earliest youth David's cham- 
pionship of the poor. 

When he was ten years old, his uncle thought that 
it was time some decision was taken regarding his 
career, since, without money or education, a boy 
could hardly expect to become anything more than a 
day laborer. The decision was a difficult one, for 
Richard Lloyd saw only one way of giving the boy 
an education. That was to take the little sum he had 
put by for old age. If David succeeded, well and 
good, but if he failed, the family could only look for- 
ward to poverty more severe than they had ever 
known. 

Finally it was settled that David should become a 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 169 

lawyer. But even when this decision was reached 
the means had still to be provided, for there was not 
enough money to pay for a lawyer's education. Then 
Richard Lloyd hit upon a plan. He would teach the 
boy French and Latin himself. He did not know the 
languages and had not much time for learning them, 
but he set about his task cheerfully, puzzling over 
Latin declensions and French verbs by a little oil 
lamp in his shop at night. 

Not every evening, however, went to the study of 
foreign languages. Once or twice a week a few of 
the neighbors would drop in to talk over affairs in the 
village while the cobbler worked. All sorts of things 
would come up for discussion, but there were two 
topics that were debated more often and more warmly 
than any others. These were religion and politics. 

Most of the people in the village were nonconform- 
ists; that is, they belonged to some other denomina- 
tion than the Church of England. Nevertheless, 
they were taxed for its support and for the support 
of its schools, and were obliged to send their children 
to a church school since there was no other. They 
objected very strongly to this and were always dis- 
cussing ways by which the church might be separated 
from the state. 

While these discussions were going on, David, hav- 
ing come in unobserved, would sit quietly in some cor- 
ner, listening eagerly to everything that was said. 
And afterwards he would think about it. As he grew 
older he began to form opinions of his own and to 



lyo LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

enter into the talk. One evening, when he was only 
fourteen, he engaged in a debate with the village 
blacksmith. 

" Do you know," said the blacksmith to Richard 
Lloyd the next day, " I really had to turn my serious 
attention to David last evening, or he would have got 
the best of me." 

Perhaps David was only trying himself out, for it 
was about this time that he went up to Liverpool to 
take his examinations, preparatory to studying law. 
The examinations lasted a week. Then he returned 
home to await results. He had said nothing to any- 
one about his plans for fear that he might fail, but 
one day a letter came, inclosing his certificate, and 
there were many congratulations when it became 
known that David Lloyd George was now an appren- 
tice at law. 

His certificate permitted him to enter an ofiice as 
a clerk, and his uncle found him a position with a law 
firm in the neighboring town of Portmadoc. He was 
doing a great deal of reading at this time, not only 
law^ but history and plays, particularly the plays of 
Shakespere. He also taught himself shorthand. 

But his chief interest was politics. He was old 
enough now to understand some of the conditions 
with w^hich he had been familiar all his life. He saw^ 
that much of the land belonging to the aristocracy 
was unproductive, given over to parks and game pre- 
serves, while the Welsh farmers had not enough to 
provide themselves with a living and could not buy 
more. 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 171 

Poaching was a crime, but the punishment was 
greater than the offense deserved. A man might beat 
his children and go free, but let him be caught fishing 
in private waters and he would be fined, or jailed, or 
both. Clearly there was one law for the rich and 
another for the poor. 

David had read history and he knew something of 
feudalism. Here was feudalism at his very door, for 
these estates and the power that went with them had 
been handed down since the Middle Ages from father 
to son. He also learned that this condition of things 
existed all over the British Isles except in Ireland, 
as it does to-day, and he began to plan ways by which 
it could be changed. 

It was his uncle, Richard Lloyd, who influenced him 
most in this. His uncle was a thinker and a man of 
conviction. In politics he belonged to the Liberal 
party, or progressive faction, which was opposed to 
the Conservative party, controlled by the lords. 
Once a few of the townspeople, more bold than the 
rest, voted with the Liberals at a village election and 
were promptly turned out of their cottages by the 
owner, who was a lord and a Conservative. Richard 
Lloyd, however, owned his cottage and earned his 
living independently of any lord, and he alone of all 
the villagers continued to vote the Liberal ticket. 

David was proud of his strong unyielding uncle. 
Like him he became a rebel against the power of the 
rich. That one man could bend another to his will by 
the use of money aroused the strongest feelings he 



172 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

had. He was one of the poor and he knew how they 
Hved. Life was hard enough without the burden of 
oppression. He was not yet seventeen, but already 
the cause of the poor had begun to shape his career. 
It was to become the work of his whole life. 

The next year he went to London for the first time 
and, among other places of interest, he visited the 
Houses of Parliament. Apparently he did not think 
much of them, for afterwards he wrote in his journal : 
'' Went to Houses of Parliament. Very much disap- 
pointed with them. Grand buildings outside, but 
inside they are crabbed, small, and suffocating, espe- 
cially the House of Commons. I will not say but that 
I eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which 
William the Conqueror eyed England on his first visit 
to Edward the Confessor, as the region of his future 
domain. Oh, vanity ! " 

In view of the fact that he was only a country boy 
with no prospects whatever, his ambition appears 
rather amazing, yet it could not have seemed so to 
him, for his confidence in himself at this time was 
quite equal to his imagination. Moreover, he had 
been reading political pamphlets for years and some 
time before there had appeared in the North Wales 
Express several political articles over the signature of 
" Brutus," but written by an ambitious young law 
clerk named David Lloyd George. 

He also belonged to the Portmadoc Debating So- 
ciety and through his public discussions of such ques- 
tions as the Irish land laws, free trade, and trade 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 173 

unionism he had become known throughout the local- 
ity. One of the local papers published some verses 
ridiculing his " thirst for renown." He commented 
on the verses in this fashion: '' Perhaps ( ?) it will be 
gratified. I believe it depends entirely on what forces 
of pluck and industry I can muster.'' 

At the age of twenty-one he went to London for his 
final examination in law. The family, meanwhile, 
had moved to Criccieth, and here the news reached 
them that David had passed " with honors." One 
more obstacle, however, remained in his way. He 
had not the fifteen dollars necessary to purchase a 
gown, without which he could not appear in court, 
and he was obliged to go into an office and work for 
a time. But, a few weeks later, a brass plate ap- 
peared on the door of the cottage at Criccieth, bear- 
ing the name " David Lloyd George, Solicitor," and 
in the back parlor, which had been turned into an 
office, the young lawyer awaited his first client. 

From the very first it was clear that he meant to 
fight the influence of wealth and class. He always 
took a case that he believed to be right, even though 
the odds were overwhelmingly against him. If the 
local magistrates were too much influenced by wealthy 
landowners to give a fair judgment he took his cause 
to a higher court. 

One of his first cases was of this kind. An old 
laborer had died and had expressed the wish to be 
buried beside his daughter in the cemetery of the 
Church of England. The old man being a non- 



174 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

conformist, the rector had refused to allow the 
burial to take place unless the services of the Eng- 
lish Church were read. Otherwise, they must bury 
the man in the plot allotted to unknown persons 
and suicides. This so outraged the laborer's friends 
that they appealed to Lloyd George for advice. 
He looked up the law of the matter and gave his 
judgment. 

'' Should the vicar refuse to open the gates," he 
said, " then break down the wall which your subscrip- 
tions have built, force your way into the churchyard, 
and bury the old man beside his daughter." 

The villagers took his advice, broke down the gates, 
buried the old man, and the church authorities brought 
suit against them. The case was finally taken before 
the Chief Justice of England, who gave a decision in 
favor of Lloyd George. It was such an unusual case 
that it brought the name of the young lawyer into 
notice, not only throughout Wales, but in England. 
Probably it was directly due to this that he was nom- 
inated the Liberal candidate of his district for Par- 
liament at the next election. 

The district which he was to represent was con- 
servative and nothing could have appeared more hope- 
less than the possibility of winning that election. He 
had not even the assurance that the poor would vote 
for him, for many of them lived on the great estates 
and dared not vote for a Liberal candidate. 

As for the rich and educated classes, they hated 
him. To them he was uncultured, lacking in man- 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 175 

ners, and insolently bold in the things he said. This 
was partly true. In his speeches he called the land- 
owners abusive names, not from personal feeling, 
but because he was working for a great cause and did 
not hesitate to use any means that would gain his 
end. His speeches shocked everybody, rich and poor 
alike, woke them to a realization of existing condi- 
tions, and that was exactly w^hat he wanted. It was 
a bitter fight which lasted two years, but Lloyd George 
won the election by a few votes and took his seat in 
the House of Commons on April 17, 1890. He was 
then just twenty-seven years old. 

In the House of Commons he was like a freshman 
at college. His surroundings were unfamiliar and 
he did not know how the business of government was 
conducted, so he quietly listened to the discussions of 
other members and observed their manner of doing 
things. Meanwhile he formed his opinions and laid 
his plans. Of one thing he was certain. He was not 
in Parliament in the interest of any party, but in the 
larger interests of Wales and democracy. 

Then little by little he let himself be known. He 
made a few speeches. Some of them were accepted 
with approval, others were frankly laughed at. But 
he was indifferent either to ridicule or criticism, and 
to the amazement of the House, which expected that 
new members would take no part in debate, he would 
not keep still. He had set his goal and he meant to 
reach it by the straightest road. It proved a straight 
road but a long one, for it was sixteen years after he 



176 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

took his seat in Parliament before his first great op- 
portunity came. This was in 1906. 

That year he was appointed President of the Board 
of Trade, a cabinet position similar to that of the 
American Secretary of Commerce. The position was 
not considered of first importance, but it was charac- 
teristic of Lloyd George that anything he undertook 
he made of first importance. It was not long until the 
British public learned that a department which had 
been dead had suddenly become alive and exceedingly 
useful. New and efiicient business methods were in- 
troduced, many changes were made. If the govern- 
ment disapproved of his measures he fought for them 
as hard as he had fought for the Welsh villagers who 
buried the old laborer in the graveyard of the Church 
of England. 

A principle for which he stood most staunchly was 
that of free trade, which means no tariff on goods 
imported from other countries. Bitterly opposed to 
free trade were the Conservatives, and one day Lloyd 
George made them a speech. It was a typical speech 
and shows the way he sometimes went for members 
of the opposition. 

'' ' I have been challenged,' he said,^ ' with regard 
to statements as to the food of the poorer people of 
Germany, and I am going to give now, not my opinion, 
but some hard facts.' He held up a blue book. 

'This volume is the last annual report of the con- 
sul-general in Germany. The facts which I shall 

1 Lloyd George. Frank Dilnot. 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 177 

quote are his facts, not mine. If you will not take my 
word you will at any rate be able to take his.' He 
turned to a marked page. ' Let us see what he says 
about a typical center, the city of Chemnitz. Here 
are some interesting figures as to what the poorer 
class eat in the tariff-reform paradise of Chemnitz.' 

' This report states that in Chemnitz last year there 
were sold in shops two thousand tons of horse flesh. 
These are not my figures, mind, but those of the 
consul-general. I commend the figures to the ex- 
cited members opposite. But horse flesh is not the 
only thing the people, through pressure of tariff re- 
form, are compelled to eat in Chemnitz. They even 
eat dog meat.' (Here there were cheers from the 
Liberals and derisive shouts from the Conservatives.) 
' The consul-general states that one thousand tons of 
dog meat were consumed in Chemnitz last year.' 
(More shouting from both sides.) 'But there is 
even worse to come.' Lloyd George's voice w^as 
grave and the House hushed itself to listen. 

' Not only horse flesh, not only dog meat, but five 
hundred tons of donkey flesh were sold in Chemnitz 
last year.' He swung his finger along the line of the 
opposition leaders and paused. 'The fact has a 
tragic significance for right honorable gentlemen who 
want to introduce tariff reform into this country.' " 

In 1908 Lloyd George was appointed Chancellor of 
the Exchequer. The office, next to that of the Prime 
Minister, is the highest in England. It is the duty 
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to determine how 



178 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

the people shall be taxed to meet the expenses of gov- 
ernment. The estimate of taxes which he makes is 
called the budget. 

When it became known that Lloyd George had been 
appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and would 
frame the budget, there was great excitement and 
alarm among the upper classes, for everyone knew 
his opinions in regard to the needs of the poor. They 
did not know what he would do, but they were certain 
that he would tax them higher than they had ever 
been taxed before. 

At this time perhaps no country in the world pre- 
sented a greater contrast between rich and poor than 
England. The wealthy owned not only great es- 
tates made up of rich farms, fine woodlands, and pri- 
vate parks, but whole villages and immense areas of 
valuable property in the heart of large cities. If fac- 
tories, mines, and railroads be added, it will be seen 
that they owned practically everything that produced 
wealth. They lived in houses so large that great 
numbers of servants were required to meet the needs 
of a small family. Lloyd George, in one of his 
speeches, told how many strong men were employed 
in serving a boiled egg to " his lordship " in the morn- 
ing, and it made the rich man appear so ridiculous 
that thereafter people only laughed when he tried to 
explain that all this luxury was really necessary. 

On the other hand, in the poorer districts of Lon- 
don and other cities thousands of people had not 
enough to eat. If one were to go to London's East 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 179 

End on a Sunday morning, he might see the people of 
the slums buying decayed vegetables that had been 
left on the hands of merchants on Saturday night, 
tearing them into shreds and eating them raw, like 
so many hungry animals. Was it their fault that 
they were so poor? Sometimes it was, but more 
often it was the fault of laws and customs that had 
been handed down from the days when the rich were 
masters and the poor were slaves. 

These wTre the conditions which Lloyd George 
determined to change. There were few people, he 
said, who, having powxr either of money or position, 
knew how to use it wisely. They were not too greatly 
concerned about the health or happiness of the work- 
ing population as long as they could make more money 
by disregarding these things. Consequently many of 
the poor gave their lives only that the rich might grow 
richer. Of course he did not consider all rich people 
in this class. Some w^ere spending large sums of 
money for the improvement of the farmers and work- 
ers, but the temptation not to do so was very great. The 
necessary remedy for this was a change in the laws 
of England. 

For any bill to become a law in England it must 
receive the majority vote of the House of Commons, 
and the House of Lords, and be passed on by the 
King. The members of the House of Commons are 
elected by the people, but membership in the House 
of Lords descends from father to son and carries with 
it the enormous power of the aristocracy. Lest too 



i8o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

much power fall into the hands of the lords, the con- 
stitution of England provides that the House of 
Lords cannot change any bill sent up from the House 
of Commons which has to do with money. 

Now see what Lloyd George's scheme was. In 
order to force the lords to pass his bill for the bet- 
terment of the poor — a bill which struck at the very 
roots of their own interests — he wrote all of the 
proposed new laws into the budget, or money bill. 
It was a plan more daring than any of which his 
bitterest enemies had dreamed. 

On the day that the Chancellor was to read his 
budget, people began to arrive at the House of Com- 
mons early. All England was expectant. Lloyd 
George had such a surprising way of doing things that 
one could never tell what would happen. The great hall 
in w^hich the House of Commons holds session was 
quickly filled to its capacity. Members overflowed 
the seats and were obliged to stand or sit on the steps 
of the speaker's platform. In the galleries were for- 
eign ambassadors, lords and ladies of title, officers, 
reporters, representatives of labor unions, families 
of the members of the House, everybody, in fact, who 
could get in. 

A hush fell upon the assembly when the Prime Min- 
ister announced the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
As Lloyd George began to read, he appeared pale and 
nervous, for he, better than anyone, understood what 
a great step forward he was taking, not only in the 
government of England, but in the cause of democ- 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE i8i 

racy everywhere throughout the world. He also 
knew that, though the majority of the House of Com- 
mons was with him, the most powerful class in Eng- 
land was against him, and it was of this class that 
he was to make his demands. One can imagine that 
it took a great deal of courage to tell them what he 
meant to do. 

He read on — tax after tax he imposed on the rich. 
From the mines they owned to the gasoline used in 
their motor cars he levied a graduated scale of taxes 
w^hich included all luxuries and which fell heaviest 
on those w^hose wealth came without effort. 

" The primary duty of a rich nation," said Lloyd 
George, " is to help the down-trodden." But the plan 
he had in mind in asking for so much money was 
something even greater than this. It was nothing 
less than to create a new race of people, a healthy and 
efficient people. " The Empire depends for its 
strength, its glory, nay for its very existence upon 
the efficiency of its people," was the way he put it. 
And the new measures of taxation were only a start 
toward this end. 

Of course the rich rose in protest against him. 
There followed such a bitter fight as there had not 
been in the history of politics for centuries. Through 
long stormy sessions of the House of Commons which 
sometimes lasted all night, Lloyd George debated with 
his opponents. And in the morning he would go from 
the House of Commons to his office to meet with com- 
mittees and organize his plans for carrying on the 



1 82 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

fight. He hardly slept or rested. Day after day, and 
week after week, he fought on, and when, finally, the 
budget was sent up to the House of Lords, only a few 
hours were required to wipe out all that he had accom- 
plished. The lords refused to accept the budget, 
although to do so was breaking the custom of Eng- 
land. 

In rejecting the budget, however, the lords had 
failed to consider one thing, that is that Lloyd George 
never knew when he was beaten. He wasted no re- 
grets over his defeat but set to work immediately to 
make new plans for winning Parliament's support. 
And this time it was to be a final battle, for what 
Lloyd George proposed to do was to break the power 
of the lords forever, so that such a defeat could 
never happen again. His plan was so bold that no 
one believed he could ever carry it out, and certainly 
he could not have done so without the help of Mr. 
Asquith, the prime minister, and the King. Both be- 
lieved with Lloyd George in the necessity of bettering 
the condition of the working people, and the amazing 
plan which Lloyd George now laid before them was 
that the King should create five hundred new lords 
from the Liberal party who would vote for the budget. 
The King agreed to do this, but in the end it was 
unnecessary, for the lords, rather than share their 
titles with a " made aristocracy," agreed to accept the 
budget. 

Since the budget was passed in 1910 Lloyd George 
has carried through several other bills of immeas- 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 183 

urable benefit to the poor. One is the Workingman's 
Insurance Bill. This is an arrangement whereby 
each man pays eight cents a week out of his wages, 
his employer six, the government four, and the whole 
sum is invested to yield interest which guarantees 
him care in the case of illness or accident. It pro- 
vides not only for free medical attendance but for 
a wage of $2.50 a week for a period of twenty-six 
weeks. If the trouble is incurable the government 
pays him $1.25 a week until he is seventy, when he is 
entitled to the benefit of the pension bill for old people. 
Every person in England, not capable of self-support, 
receives $1.25 on his seventieth birthday and each 
week thereafter as long as he lives. 

When the pension bill first went into effect, a group 
of old people were overheard talking outside the post 
office of a small town in England. They had come, 
some of them, from quite a distance, and had gath- 
ered near the post office because they had heard that 
the money was to be paid out there. Instead of going 
in to receive their pensions, however, they waited in 
the street, puzzling over the announcement. It was 
like a dream. They would tell each other over and 
over what things they needed and the little comforts 
they would buy; then they would shake their heads 
and say, '' No, it can't be true." Still nobody would 
go inside. But after a time one old man, thinking he 
would put an end to the uncertainty, boldly stepped 
into the office. The others waited breathlessly and 
in a few minutes he returned, holding five bright 



1 84 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

coins in his hand. Then there was a rush for the 
door. 

Not far from Lloyd George's residence in London 
is St. James Park. If you were to go there early 
some morning you would probably see him walking- 
hand in hand with his small daughter Megan. Rarely 
do they miss their morning walk, for Megan's great 
delight is St. James Lake with its famous water-fowl. 

Evening brings Megan and her father together 
again. Perhaps she will sit down at the piano and 
play some popular air, and Lloyd George will join in 
the song. He is particularly fond of American negro 
melodies. Also a great deal of teasing goes on be- 
tween these two. Megan tells him that the affairs of 
government are a nuisance and he threatens that his 
next bill will be one to reduce school holidays to two 
weeks. 

Lloyd George's family, in addition to Megan, con- 
sists of Mrs. Lloyd George, who shares equally her 
husband's interest in the poor, an older daughter, and 
two sons, both of whom served in France. Another 
person who has become a member of the household 
in recent years is the old uncle, Richard Lloyd, now 
nearly ninety. 

Down in Wales, less than a mile from the village 
where Lloyd George grew up, he has built his home, 
and it is to this place that he retires when in need of 
rest or a vacation. Sometimes he runs down just 
for the week end. A day spent sitting on the ve- 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 185 

randa, which overlooks the sea, or tramping through 
the woods completely refreshes him when tired by 
weeks of exacting work. 

If it is a real vacation of a month or so, he will 
take Mrs. Lloyd George or one of the sons or even 
the whole family and go up into the mountains to 
camp. He is very fond of Welsh scenery and will 
pitch his tent on some wild, bleak moor, where he can 
enjoy a view of snow mountains, lakes, and forests. 

In August, 1914, when England entered the war, 
Lloyd George was still Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
The Boer War, some years before, had made him a 
bitter opponent of all wars ; therefore the question of 
what he would do became of first importance. For 
■ more than a week he was silent. Then he came be- 
fore the public with these words: ''There is no man 
who has ahvays regarded the prospect of engaging in 
a great war with greater reluctance and greater re- 
pugnance than I have done through all my political 
life. There is no man m.ore convinced that we could 
not have avoided it without national dishonor." And 
after that speech there was no other man in England 
who supported the war with so much vigor and 
strength of purpose. 

Everyone knows from America's experience how 
great are the money problems of a great war. In 
England they were even greater, and the bankers, 
who knew what vigorous methods Lloyd George 
sometimes used, were afraid lest he should upset the 



i86 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

whole financial system. But instead he sent word 
to the bankers to come to see him. " I want the 
assistance of the best brains of expert people. I want 
you to give me your help as to the best way of putting 
things straight. I require your help at once. Will 
you come immediately to my office? " 

When he had all the facts before him he began to 
shape his plans. One of the most striking qualities 
of Lloyd George's mind is his ability to see future 
needs, and once he sees, to act with promptness and 
courage. This is the method by which he worked 
throughout the war, and always he managed to bring 
order out of confusion. 

The money problems solved, he turned his atten- 
tion to munitions. He saw that the English army 
was not getting enough of the right kind of shells. 
The trouble was with the organization for handling 
munitions and immediately he thought of a better 
way. He had to fight, as usual, to get the govern- 
ment to accept his method, but finally he was made 
Minister of Munitions. 

Then things began to happen. Whole towns 
sprang up almost over night. Women went into the 
factories by the hundreds of thousands, relieving the 
men for war. They worked in shifts of eight hours 
each, so that the manufacture of munitions never 
ceased day or night. Factories that formerly had 
made machinery were now converted into munition 
factories. Railroads, ships, and automobiles were 
organized into one great transportation system for 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 187 

bringing raw materials to the factories and for send- 
ing an endless stream of munitions to France. 

With this tremendous increase in manufacturing 
came many difficult labor problems. There was gen- 
eral dissatisfaction among the workers, which often 
ended in serious strikes. Lloyd George recognized 
the justice of this dissatisfaction and made the gov- 
ernment see that, in order to guard the health and 
efficiency of its workers, enormous sums of money 
must be spent for better homes and factories. On 
the other hand he told the workers that, inasmuch as 
the soldiers could not choose the conditions under 
which they would fight, neither could the workers in 
such an emergency choose the conditions of work, 
and England expected of them the same loyalty to 
the cause. 

With the death of Lord Kitchener Lloyd George 
became Minister of War. Kitchener had asked for 
great armies and, though England had been amazed 
at the largeness of the order, she had responded loy- 
ally. More than a million young men had volun- 
teered. Now came Lloyd George demanding still 
larger and larger armies, and what was hardest of all 
for England to accept, conscription. He gave them 
a little time to think it over and set to work, mean- 
while, to learn everything he could about the war. 

The story of how he learned the very complex 
mechanism of shells shows how he went after a thing 
he wanted to know. One day he sent for the muni- 
tion experts to come to his office and explain shells. 



1 88 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

They spent the entire morning with him. Point by- 
point they went over the mechanism and when by 
noon Lloyd George had not mastered it, he invited 
the men to lunch. The conversation at luncheon was 
about shells and after luncheon they returned to the 
office once more to talk shells. Tea time came and 
still Lloyd George insisted on talking shells. The 
men grew tired and restless but he held them. It was 
night before he let them go and, though he had accom- 
plished nothing else that day, he knew shells from 
beginning to end. 

It has always been the custom for a member of 
England's cabinet to attend only to the affairs of his 
department and leave other departments alone, but 
the time came when Lloyd George was not content 
to do this. Everywhere he saw opportunities for 
improving the organization and speeding up the war. 
Greater speed was his constant demand. 

He felt that the important questions of war were 
decided upon by too many people and that this fact 
chiefly explained the slowness of the government to 
act. He recommended that all such decisions be 
placed in the hands of not more than six men. Like 
most of his recommendations this was another of 
those startling changes to which the British people 
had not, even yet, become accustomed. It aroused 
so much opposition that it led finally to the resignation 
of the Prime Minister. It was then that Lloyd George 
stepped into the highest office of the British Empire. 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 189 

The London residence of Lloyd George is No. 11 
Downing Street. It is an old dingy building which 
has served for a century or more as the official resi- 
dence of the Prime Minister of England. Next door, 
at No. 10, is the Foreign Office. A connecting pas- 
sage makes the two buildings practically one. 

Lloyd George is up every morning at seven o'clock. 
Almost the first thing he looks through a packet of 
papers and documents relating to the business of the 
day. Usually they are papers which he has brought 
to his room the night before in order to have them 
at his bedside should he waken in the night. Then 
he takes a quick glance at the morning papers, not 
only London papers, but those from other English 
cities and from European capitals. 

Soon visitors begin to arrive. Breakfast, which 
is at 9.10, is rarely an affair of the family alone. 
There are always guests, as there are also guests for 
dinner and luncheon. In this way Lloyd George in- 
terviews many people he w^ould not otherwise have 
time to see. Many problems having to do with the 
country's welfare are settled at his breakfast or 
luncheon table. 

By ten o'clock he is ready to begin the day's work. 
He has three secretaries, who answer his correspond- 
ence, supply him with whatever material he desires 
for his conferences, and who look after the endless 
details of government business to which he cannot 
o-ive his time. When he was Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer he received on an average a thousand letters 



igo LK\DERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

a day. Xow he probably receives three or four times 
that many. 

He rarely answers a letter and is known among his 
associates as the ** Great Unanswered." He says that 
letters answer themselves if one gives them time. 
Sometimes people have tried to get a reply from him by 
inclosing two stamped and addressed envelopes, one 
bearinof the word ** ves," the other *' no." The effort 
usually proves unsuccessful for quite likeh* he will 
return both of them. 

During the war Lloyd George held cabinet meet- 
ings almost every day. beginning at 11.30 in the morn- 
ing and lasting until 1.45 in the afternoon. They 
were probably unlike any other cabinet meetings that 
Downing Street had known, for the cabinet seldom 
met alone. Experts of every kind were invited in to 
furnish the best available knowledge upon which to 
base the decisions of state. The cabinet also em- 
ployed a large staff of secretaries, each having charge 
of a special department, such as labor, health, or 
schools. 

The room in which the cabinet meets is stately and 
dignified in appearance; it is furnished simply with a 
long table, a desk, and twenty or more chairs. The 
walls are covered with maps. Its only brightness is 
the fire burning on the open hearth. 

Lloyd George sits at the center of the table, where 
he can easily talk with all the members. The meet- 
ings are informal, for the Prime ^Minister dislikes 
both stateliness and red tape. He likes to get at the 



DAMD LLOYD GEORGE 191 

point of subject as quickly as possible in order to 
finish with the business at hand and get on to some- 
thing else. 

Before Lloyd George moved in, Xo. 10 Downing 
Street had the quiet, dignified air that has always 
belonged to Britain's Foreign Ofhce. But now every- 
thing is business and movement. People are coming 
and going all day. The secretaries are kept busy 
early and late and Lloyd George himself works hard- 
est of all. 

At 2.45 in the afternoon the Parliament assembles, 
when he either attends the session or shifts his con- 
ference to the Parliament building. From that time 
until the houses adjourn, which is often at a very late 
hour of the night, he is constantly busy, interviewing 
members and working to carry out his plans. 

When Lloyd George became Premier, a storm of 
protest swept political England. 

" A cobbler's nephew! '' cried his enemies, "a man 
from the Welsh hills, without training in history or 
statesmanship, the Prime Minister of England ! What 
is England coming to? " 

They failed to see what it was that had made him 
Prime ^Minister of England. They forgot that there 
is always a close relation between great men and the 
age in which they live. Lloyd George is a man who 
believes in government by the people and he lives in a 
democratic age. 

For centuries the aristocracy, the people of wealth 
and large possessions, have been the governing class. 



192 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




David Lloyd George 



DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 193 

But little by little the working people have been ac- 
quiring power, until the war has suddenly brought the 
conflict to an issue. In England, in Germany, in 
Russia, in America, it is the question uppermost in 
men's minds. For whom shall a government exist, 
for the privileged classes whether they be rich or poor, 
or for all the people? 

Before there can be a government for all the 
people many bad systems that now exist must be 
changea and the war has made people see that they 
must be changed. What Lloyd George hopes is that 
everywhere in the w^orld enough people will see the 
need for reform ''to make it impossible for govern- 
ments not to do so." 

And how is this change to be brought about? In 
three ways, says Lloyd George. First, people must 
see things as they are. Secondly, each person must 
feel himself responsible for the conditions that exist. 
And lastly, each must be prepared to sacrifice some- 
thing in the larger interests of the community or the 
nation, for democracy means the service of mankind, 
whether that service be given in school, at work, or 
on the battlefield. 

REFERENCES 

Lloyd George, Frank Dilnot. 

David Lloyd George, Herbert du Parcq. 

Lloyd George, an Intimate Study, Isaac F. Marcosson, Every- 
body's, Jan., 1917. 

Lloyd George at Work and at Play, Review of Reviews, Nov., 
1913. 



194 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Some English Statesmen, Sydney Brooks. McClure's, June, 

1911. 
Lloxd George's England, Clarence Poe, World's Work, Nov., 

" 1912. 
Llo\d George on the Chureh and Poverty Problem, London 

Quarterly Review, April, 1912. 
No. To Dozening Street, Outlook, April 24, 1918. 
Lloxd George's Big Program for Social Reform, Literary 
'Digest, Jan. 11, 1919. 



VIII. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 

He is called the Tiger, this "young man" of sev- 
enty-eight years who is now the Prime Minister of 
France. He has " torn, clawed, and bitten his way 
to power," people say. Armed with his principles of 
liberty and justice, he has spared no one. He has 
made and unmade careers. His enemies fear him; 
the people love him, for they know that he fights 
always for the happiness of his fellow men and for 
France. 

He was born in 1841 in a small village in that part 
of western France called Vendee. It was a typical 
French village of low plastered houses set in the 
midst of a pleasant farming country. The father of 
Georges Clemenceau was the village doctor. He was 
a stern, harsh man who often made fun of the rough 
manners of the peasants among whom he practiced, 
but who rarely charged them anything for his services 
and constantly sought ways to improve their condi- 
tion. Living at a time when France was an empire, 
he believed in a republican form of government, loved 
liberty, and hated injustice. Not infrequently his 
ideas came into conflict with the government, and once 
he w^as imprisoned. 

He was a landowner as well as a doctor, and the 
second home of the Clemenceaus was the Chateau de 

195 



196 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

I'Aubraie, also in the region of Vendee. It was a 
bleak, gloomy castle of stone, surrounded by a moat 
filled with muddy water. One of the towers dated 
from the sixteenth century and the drawbridge was 
at least two hundred years old. 

Here Georges Clemenceau passed his boyhood. In 
daily contact with his father, he grew up to share his 
way of thinking. Afterwards, when as a man he 
returned to the Chateau de I'Aubraie to visit his 
father, the two were often seen walking through the 
lanes or across the fields in earnest discussion of some 
problem having to do with government or with bet- 
tering the lot of men. 

Georges was the second of six children. The name 
which he had inherited in itself indicated the stern 
qualities of the family of Clemenceau. The word 
"clement" in French means ''mild" or ''gentle," 
and the name Clemenceau is said to have been derived 
from the phrase, " le peu clement," " the least mild," 
that is, " harsh " or " unmerciful." Unmerciful the 
Clemenceaus were, but only toward wrong and in- 
justice. 

In time the family moved to Nantes, where 
Georges's mother helped him to prepare for the lycee, 
or high school. At the lycee he was not an excep- 
tional student, though he was considered a promising 
young orator. He learned languages easily, how- 
ever, and mastered English in an unusually short time 
because he was so eager to read Robinson Crusoe. 
After finishing at the lycee he took up the study of 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 197 

medicine, first in Nantes, then in Paris. For three 
hundred years the Clemenceaus had been doctors and 
it was taken as a matter of course that Georges would 
follow in the profession. 

Determined to get ahead as rapidly as possible, he 
worked very hard for a time, studying in the libraries 
and serving as an interne in the Paris hospitals. But 
after a few months he discovered that he was becom- 
ing more interested in politics than in medicine. 

With the impatience of a youth of nineteen, he 
rebelled at the conditions he found in Paris. It was 
a dirty, ill-smelling city. The quarters in which the 
working classes lived, especially, were dark, crowded, 
and unhealthful. The government was at fault, he 
reasoned, and the government was an empire. 
Trained as he had been from boyhood, he believed 
that the only remedy was the reestablishment of the 
Republic. In this he was not alone. He found that 
a political organization for that purpose already ex- 
isted, its members being chiefly students like himself, 
and he threw in his lot with the radicals. He made 
speeches and wrote articles for their publications. So 
ardent a believer in democracy was he at this time 
that one day, when an acquaintance unwittingly joked 
about^ his political ideas, he challenged him to a duel. 
This was the first of the many duels he fought. 
Although he is left-handed, he uses either a sword 
or a pistol with great skill. Sometimes he was 
wounded, but usually his antagonists fared the worse. 
He always made it a point of honor, however, never 



1 98 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

to kill. These duels all came in the early years of 
Clemenceau's life, the practice of dueling having 
practically disappeared in France to-day. 

The life of a political radical in the days of the 
Second Empire was filled with excitement and danger, 
particularly of such a radical as Georges Clemenceau, 
who was unable to keep his ideas to himself. The 
24th of February, the anniversary of an unsuccessful 
revolution in 1848, was a day which republicans 
always celebrated. On this day, during his second 
year in Paris, Clemenceau was among the crowd that 
gathered to commemorate this event. Carried away 
by enthusiasm for the cause, he so far forgot himself 
as to shout "Long live the Republic." A few days 
later, as he sat in the theater, he was arrested and 
given two months in prison to think over his political 
offense. 

His first act on being released was to go to Geneva, 
Switzerland, to get materials for a new printing press, 
the old press of the radicals having been confiscated 
during the days of the celebration. He discovered 
that he could no longer go and come unobserved ; the 
police now kept watch of him. One night, soon after 
his return, a search was made of his lodgings. He 
was quite equal to the occasion. He held a candle 
for the inspector, held it so close to his eyes that it 
blinded him, and the printing press escaped notice. 

It was in the midst of such activities as these that 
he carried on his studies, and in 1865, when he had 
been five years in Paris, he took his doctor's degree. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 199 

The essay which he presented on this occasion gained 
him a reputation as a student of anatomy; it is said 
to be consulted to this day. 

At some time during this period Clemenceau had 
made the acquaintance of an American, who per- 
suaded him to visit the United States, and soon after 
his graduation he made the journey by way of Lon- 
don to New York. EstabHshing himself as a doctor 
in an office on West 12th Street, he waited for 
patients. But in New York, as in Paris, he was much 
more interested in the living conditions of the people 
about him than in his profession. The people who 
finally sought his medical advice were chiefly the poor, 
whom he never had the heart to charge enough to 
give him a living. 

His income at this time came from letters about 
America which he sent back to one of the Paris papers. 
His first impressions of Americans, he wrote, were 
that they had " no general ideas and no good coffee." 
Included in his travels was a walking trip through 
the country which James Fenimore Cooper described 
in The Last of the Mohicans, and the book has 
remained a favorite of Clemenceau's because it recalls 
scenes of New York State of which he was especially 
fond. 

When, later, he had exhausted the possibilities for 
letters and his money began to run low, a friend 
secured him the position of teacher of French and of 
French literature in a young ladies' seminary in Stam- 
ford, Connecticut. One of his duties at the seminary 



200 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

was to accompany his pupils on horseback rides. 
" There were free and deh'ghtful httle tours, charm- 
ing excursions along the shady roads which traverse 
the gay landscape of Connecticut." ^ 

Four years were spent in America at this time. 
Later, Clemenceau made a second trip in order to 
marry Miss Mary Plummer, one of his former pupils 
at the seminary. 

The year of 1870 found him again in Paris, prac- 
ticing medicine among the working people of the dis- 
trict called Montmartre. Again he was unable to 
make a living. Since then he has confessed that the 
most his practice ever brought was $650 a year. 

This year — 1870 — was the year of the Franco- 
Prussian war, and September 4th saw the reestablish- 
ment of the Republic, for which Clemenceau had 
worked so hard during all his student days. The 
change of government had come, however, at a time 
when change brought the gravest dangers, for Paris 
was besieged and the German army all but encircled 
the city. 

Clemenceau, then only twenty-nine, was appointed 
Mayor of Montmartre. At once he set to work to 
organize a relief system to care for the people of his 
district. The number for whose welfare he was 
responsible was 155,000. Bread, meat, water, and 
fuel had to be distributed to each family every day. 
Yet, in spite of the amount of work this required, he 
found time during the months of the siege to reorgan- 
ize the school system. 

1 M. Maurice Le Blond in H. M. Hyndman's Clemenceau. 



GEORGES CL^MENCEAU 201 

After peace was declared, he was elected deputy, 
or congressman, to represent Paris. During the war 
the seat of government had been moved to Bordeaux. 
Accordingly Clemenceau went to Bordeaux to meet 
with the National Assembly. This was the begin- 
ning of his political career and he took his place 
at once on the side of the '' opposition." When 
everybody else wanted peace, Clemenceau rose in 
the assembly and voted to continue the war with 
Germany and against giving up Alsace and Lor- 
raine. Owing to the food situation, a very bitter 
feeling existed at this time between country and 
city people, a feeling which Clemenceau tried hard 
to change. Failing to do this, he immediately re- 
signed as deputy and returned to Paris to take up 
again his relief work among the poor of Mont- 
martre. 

Less than a month later, the citizens of Paris re- 
volted against the new republic and set up a govern- 
ment of their own called the Commune. In the civil 
war which followed, Clemenceau's own district of 
Montmartre was one of the first sections of the city 
to be taken by the Nationalist troops. Fearing vio- 
lence between soldiers and citizens, Clemenceau had 
obtained a promise from the President of the Republic 
that some cannon belonging to the Paris National 
Guard should not be touched. Though the cannon 
were useless for lack of powder, the people regarded 
them with particular affection, for they had bought 
them with their own savings to defend Paris against 



202 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

the Germans. All together they numbered one hun- 
dred seventy-one pieces. 

For some reason the new President broke his prom- 
ise and sent troops to remove the guns. Hearing of 
this, Clemenceau hurried to the spot, and, while the 
soldiers were waiting for horses to be brought, remon- 
strated with the general in charge. But the general 
would not tolerate any interference and the work of 
removal continued. 

With many misgivings, Clemenceau returned to his 
office in the Town Hall. A few hours later he was 
informed that the two generals commanding the Na- 
tionalist troops had been shot by the enraged mob. 
Thinking that the report might be only a rumor, 
he again hastened to the scene of trouble, hoping 
that he might be in time to save the lives of the two 
generals. 

Cries of '' Traitor '' greeted him. Had he not 
promised that the guns would not be touched? He 
tried to speak. The crowd refused to hear him. 
Learning then that the generals had already been shot 
and that the soldiers had gone over to the side of 
the people, he gave up trying to calm the tumult and 
started back to the Tow^n Hall. People struck at him 
as he passed. A few pointed their rifles. Ordinarily 
it was but a fifteen minute walk; that day it took 
Clemenceau an hour and a half. 

He arrived at last only to turn back again. This 
time it was reported that the Communists were to 
shoot two hundred soldiers whom they had captured. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 203 

Clemenceaii's fearlessness in returning won the re- 
spect of the mob for the moment ; they agreed to spare 
the soldiers' lives, but two days later they turned 
Clemenceau out of office as a suspected person. 

For the next five years he followed his profession, 
working as before among the poor, but in 1876 he was 
again elected deputy, and from this time on he had 
great influence in the affairs of France. Determined 
to make France a real democracy, he fought for his 
principles of equal rights, justice, and honesty with 
a savageness that gained him the name of " Tiger." 
Politicians who desired favors from the government 
found him a person greatly to be feared. He liked 
nothing better than a chance to expose dishonesty or 
inefficiency in public affairs. His method was usually 
to attack his opponents in a speech upon the floor of 
the Chamber of Deputies. He was quick at retort 
and had a great fund of knowledge, which he knew 
how to turn to good account. To interrupt him was 
to invite humiliation and defeat. 

But the thing which exasperated his opponents 
most was his sense of humor ; he wrecked careers with 
an air of having a very good time. Sometimes his 
enemies w^ould pass him in the Bois de Boulogne of a 
morning and would gnash their teeth to see him ride 
by with a manner of gay indifference, when he was 
planning, perhaps, to destroy them in one of his biting 
speeches that very afternoon. 

His influence was enormous. He made and un- 
made the presidents of France. '' He would upset 



204 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

a cabinet like a house of cards."' Once someone 
asked him how many ministries he had destroyed. 
He said that he could not remember. However, between 
the years 1876 and 1893, which marked the first 
period of his political career, eighteen administra- 
tions fell under his attacks ; since then the number has 
grown. 

His opponents said of him that he was unable to 
build up what he tore down, for each time he upset a 
ministry he refused to form one himself. Men whom 
he could easily have defeated enjoyed positions of 
wealth and power while he remained a deputy. 

Once in conducting a political campaign he placed 
all his private accounts before the people and they 
learned that for all his power and influence the Tiger 
was not very well off. His only luxuries had been a 
hunting license costing $125 and a horse which he 
had kept nine months at an expense of $1 a day for 
food and care. He had not been able to give his 
daughter a marriage portion and he was still paying 
installments on furniture bought six years before. 

In 1893 came his great political defeat. The foes, 
who for six years had smarted under his stings and 
gibes, at last contrived to get him out of office. He 
lost the election in the district which he had repre- 
sented for so many years. From the most influential 
person in France he became once more an ordinary 
citizen, whose only voice in affairs was his single vote. 

He was the Tiger still, however. The next day 

1 " M. Clemenceau," Laurence Jerrold, Contemporary Review, Nov., 
1906. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 205 

after his defeat he sat down to write. Deprived of 
the opportunity to make speeches in the Chamber of 
Deputies, he would make them through the press. 
In 1878 he had founded a small paper called "Jus- 
tice," but heretofore his busy life had permitted him 
to write only an occasional article. Now, at the age 
of fifty-three, he took up journalism as a profession. 
In a daily editorial for his paper he continued to speak 
his mind about men and affairs. His articles soon 
attracted as much attention as his speeches had done. 
Editors of newspapers and magazines from all parts 
of France wrote asking for something from his pen. 
In addition to articles for the newspapers, he wrote 
a novel, several books of essays and stories, and a 
one-act play, which was performed in Paris a few 
years later. Many of his books had to do with the 
bad conditions under which men worked and lived. 
In fact, ''in everything he wrote," says one of his 
biographers,' ''there are passages which show how 
warm was his heart for the poor, how strong his 
horror of oppression, how persistent his love of liberty 
and his sympathy with those who fight for it." 

Though Clemenceau is now seventy-eight, he walks 
with the firm, quick step of a young man. The 
French describe his appearance as " picturesque." He 
has white hair and sharp black eyes, and he wears his 
clothes in a manner which others try to imitate but 

1 " M. Clemenceau and His Problems," Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic, 
June, 1918. 



2o6 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




Georges Clemenceau 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 207 

cannot. His serious face shows at the same time his 
humor and kindliness. 

Next door to his home in Paris is a school, and 
occasionally, when the children are at play, a ball 
comes flying over the wall that separates the play- 
ground from Clemenceau's garden. If the Premier 
happens to be in his garden, he very obligingly runs 
after the ball and tosses it back; often he narrowly 
escapes being hit. 

He laises both flowers and vegetables and keeps 
enough poultry to supply him with fresh eggs. Some- 
times of an evening he is to be seen sitting in the 
shrubbery, revolver in hand, waiting for the cats that 
kill his chickens. Nevertheless he is very fond of 
animals, especially dogs. Frequently a visitor to the 
office of the Prime Minister will find one of his favor- 
ite dogs comfortably curled up on the hearth. When 
Clemenceau became Minister of the Interior, he 
thought the gardens of the Ministry incomplete with- 
out animals and ordered that peacocks be placed in 
them. But the residents of the neighborhood objected 
to the peacocks' shrill cries and petitioned that they be 
removed. Clemenceau finally solved the difficulty by 
having an operation performed on the vocal cords of 
his birds in order that he might have the pleasure of 
seeing them whenever he looked out of the Ministry 
windows. 

It would be hard to find anywhere a person who 
works so many hours as the Premier of France. That 
he is able to accomplish so much is due first to his 



2o8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

strong constitution and secondly to the regular habits 
he keeps. On ordinary working days eight o'clock 
every night finds him in bed, but he rises at three in 
the morning. Between three and six o'clock he writes 
the daily editorial for his paper, which might itself 
be considered a day's work. In order that he may 
have the latest news for his editorials, a messenger 
from the newspaper office is sent to Clemenceau's 
home every night with the last bulletins, which he slips 
under the doormat, where the Premier looks for them 
the first thing in the morning. Sometimes, fearing 
that he has overslept, he gets up to look under the mat 
before the messenger has arrived. 

After a half hour of gymnastic exercises, his break- 
fast, consisting of a cup of coffee and a roll, is served 
at six-thirty. Frequently he holds conferences in the 
morning, and visitors begin to arrive as early as 
eight. Otherwise he writes and studies in his library 
until twelve. 

Clemenceau has been a student all his life. He be- 
lieves that to study is the best way of keeping young 
and says that a person should learn a new language 
every ten years. In the midst of a busy political career 
he finds time to keep up his interest in medicine. 
For recreation he reads Latin and Greek. 

His library is a beautiful room, furnished with 
works of oriental art. It is sound proof and contains 
neither a typewriter nor a telephone. He works at 
a big table shaped like a horseshoe, setting down his 
notes in a neat, fine handwriting. 



GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 209 

After luncheon he rests for an hour, then goes to 
the Ministry or attends a session of the Chamber of 
Deputies. This he counts the hardest work of the 
day. In the evening he either spends a social hour 
with his family or goes again to his study. 

In 1902 Clemenceau came back into politics as sen- 
ator for one of the "departments," which in France 
correspond somewhat to our states. Four years later 
he became Prime Minister, holding the office of Min- 
ister of the Interior at the same time. His enemies, 
who had complained that he had nothing better to offer 
in place of the laws which he so persistently opposed, 
were to learn that he knew how to build quite as well 
as to tear down. Under his leadership France passed 
more laws affecting the welfare of the people than un- 
der any other ministry in the history of the Republic. 
There were laws that provided for the relief of the 
sick, for old age pensions, for the insurance of work- 
men against injury, and for one day of rest in each 
week. A Ministry of Labor was established. An in- 
come tax law was passed. Freedom of the press, of 
schools, and of religion, was staunchly upheld. 

Meantime Clemenceau, who watched the prepara- 
tion of Germany, sounded the alarm of war. Few 
people heeded his warning. Nevertheless he contin- 
ued to fight for laws to increase the military strength 
of the nation and appointed Foch the head of the Su- 
perior School of War. 

In the diplomatic relations between the two coun- 



2IO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

tries things frequently happened which, had the mo- 
ment been right, Germany could easily have made the 
occasion for war. One such circumstance occurred 
during Clemenceau's ministry. Two soldiers who had 
deserted from the German army joined the French 
Foreign Legion and Germany demanded that they be 
returned. International law, in this case, was on the 
side of France and Clemenceau refused to give up 
the men. Germany threatened. He remained firm. 
He believed that these desertions were only a pretext 
to give Germany the right to dictate to France. Fi- 
nally the German ambassador conceived a plan which 
he thought would bring Clemenceau to time. 

'' Mr. Premier," he said, '' if complete satisfaction 
were not given to my Government, I would be forced 
by order of His Majesty, the Emperor, to ask for my 
passports." This meant war. The German ambas- 
sador knew that France was unprepared. 

Clemenceau consulted his watch. ''The express 
for Cologne leaves at nine o'clock; it is now^ seven," he 
replied. '' Your Excellency, if you do not wish to 
miss the train, you had better hurry." It is hardly 
necessary to add that the ambassador did not go. 

Though Clemenceau went out of the ministry again 
in 1909, he continued to watch Germany and to warn 
France. In 1912 he established another paper called 
'' Free Man," and by means of this he gave his whole 
time and energy to the cause of preparation for war. 
His ideas made him unpopular, for, almost up to the 
last minute, the French people refused to believe in 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 211 

the possibility of war. Sometimes Clemenceau 
pleaded with them, sometimes he scolded and stormed. 
With it all certain reforms were accomplished, though 
to his mind they were not enough. Then one day the 
church bells in every village and drums at every cross- 
roads sounded the call to arms. 

One of the first measures for which Clemenceau 
asked after the declaration of war was the establish- 
ment of the censorship. In the Franco-Prussian war 
the newspapers had needlessly alarmed the people 
many times by printing false reports. To avoid a 
repetition of this error a military censor was now ap- 
pointed to determine what news the press should give 
out, and almost the first thing he did was to suppress 
Clemenceau's own paper for exposing the mistakes of 
the army medical service. 

To suppress the publication of false news was one 
thing, but to keep from the people a knowledge of 
everything that went wrong was another, and Clemen- 
ceau did not submit to this kind of censorship without 
a struggle. The next day his paper appeared again 
with the same articles. Then the publication of the 
paper was ordered stopped. At this point Clemenceau 
must have agreed to accept the censor's ruling, for 
after a few days the paper reappeared, only it no 
longer bore the name of " Free Man " ; it was now 
called '' Man Enchained." Three years later, when 
Clemenceau became Prime Minister for a second time, 
the old name v/as restored. 

In the beginning of September, when the Germans 



212 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

were marching on Paris, the War Office sought to pre- 
pare the people for the possibiHty of defeat by issuing 
the following bulletin: " The great battle is on at last, 
between Maubeuge and Donon. Upon it hangs the 
fate of France." Except for this the people lacked 
information entirely. They did not know what had 
happened to their armies or what the next few days 
might bring to them. Some despaired, others hoped, 
but there was no one who did not feel the deepest 
anxiety. The next day following this announcement 
Clemenceau's paper came out with a startling denial. 
" It is not true," it said, referring to the War Office's 
bulletin. " The fate of France does not depend upon 
this one battle, nor upon any which may follow. Her 
fate depends solely upon the resistance which the 
French, all the French, can oppose to the invader with- 
out a sign of weakness. France is not lost merely 
because her soldiers happen to meet with defeat in 
one battle." 

In his words the people found courage and comfort. 
Many who had never read his paper began to read it 
now for the sake of the daily article, which always 
contained some such words as these. In all of Cle- 
menceau's services to France, none was greater than 
this, that through four terrible years of war he con- 
stantly upheld the courage of the nation. 

" He is mounting guard for France," wrote one of 
his fellow countrymen.^ " Since he cannot be the 
pilot who steers the vessel he will be the watchman who 

^ CUmenceau, Gustave Geffroy. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 213 

warns of the reefs and the dangers of getting off the 
course; he will be the night-watch who observes the 
sky and forecasts the weather. At the first hours of 
the morning every day, on the ground floor of a house 
at Passy, a lamp is lighted. The same hand that has 
lighted the wick and lowered the lampshade, seizes a 
pen. An energetic and thoughtful face bends under 
the light toward the white page that will soon be cov- 
ered by a swift, nervous handwriting. Under the 
thick black eyebrows his eyes gleam, become angry and 
tender at the same time. Under the white mustache 
his mouth mutters or formulates the words, the sen- 
tences, the ideas. Clemenceau is writing his edi- 
torial." 

Sometimes he would slip away from Paris to the 
seashore near his old home in Vendee, but there, too, 
he lighted his lamp at three every morning in order 
that the people mJght not miss the words of encourage- 
ment for which they now looked every day. 

As the war progressed it became more and more 
clear to the French people that something was wrong 
within the government. They were convinced that 
men of high standing were in the employ of the enemy, 
that Germany, failing to achieve a decisive military 
victory, had set on foot a scheme to bring about the 
defeat of France from within. While these facts 
were generally known, no one dared to act. So clev- 
erly had the plan been worked that Germany had con- 
trived to get powerful political support and it was 
doubtful whether anyone who tried could succeed in 



214 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

getting the suspected men arrested. Meanwhile the 
army was being sacrificed at the front, and the people, 
despairing of justice, grew more disheartened every 
day. 

It remained for Clemenceau to act. Suspecting 
where the trouble lay, he boldly accused the Prime 
Minister and the whole administration of being re- 
sponsible for a conspiracy to ruin France. Day after 
day he hurled his accusations until it became impos- 
sible for the men he accused to continue in power. The 
government fell, the traitors were arrested and tried. 
Only one member of the cabinet was found guilty, M. 
Malvy, Minister of the Interior, whose punishment 
was exile from France. Two others figuring chiefly 
in the plot were M. Caillaux, a financier of interna- 
tional standing, who was imprisoned, and an adven- 
turer named Bolo, who was shot. 

Having been saved at the eleventh hour from a dis- 
aster worse than any that could have happened on the 
battlefield, the people now demanded a premier who 
would ''use all the energies and resources of France 
to defeat Germany, who would see that they had fuel 
and food, and who would not allow the armies to be 
assailed in the rear by the use of German money." ^ 
President Poincare, heeding their cry, asked Cle- 
menceau to form a cabinet, and in twenty-four hours 
the new Prime Minister had begun to straighten out 
the entanglements that had come so near losing the 
war. 

1 The Tiger of France, Herbert Adams Gibbons. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 215 

From the beginning of the war Clemenceau had 
visited the front ahnost daily. He had preferred to 
go as a journahst, refusing the attention paid to sena- 
tors; in this way he obtained a great deal more in- 
formation about the armies. When he became Prime 
Minister he also served as Minister of War, and this 
furnished another reason for his frequent visits to 
the trenches. Though there was little he did not know 
about the war, he kept himself informed to the last 
minute, and he liked best to get his information di- 
rectly from the soldiers. 

Villagers living along the way quickly recognized 
him and cheered him as he passed, or gathered about 
his car to talk with him when there was occasion. 
-But usually he traveled at full speed, and, since he al- 
ways insisted on visiting the front where the heaviest 
fighting was going on, he had many narrow escapes 
from shells. Once two windows of his automobile 
were broken by fragments of a shell that fell in the 
road just after he had passed. If he chanced to meet 
troops on the march he would greet them with '' How 
do you do, gentlemen?" and men who did not know 
him were at a loss to account for this distinctly unmil- 
itary person who traveled about the war zone with 
such freedom. 

In the trenches, however, he was a familiar figure. 
Dressed in knickerbockers and gaiters and wearing 
a rough felt hat pulled over his eyes, he waded through 
mud, or sat for hours, pressed into a niche of some 
trench wall, getting the information he so much 



2i6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

desired while he waited for a bombardment to 
cease. If he were accompanied by an officer, as 
he always was in the days before he became Min- 
ister of War, his constant endeavor was to make his 
escape. 

''You are not obliged to accompany me," he would 
say, half earnestly, half in fun. To which the officer 
would generally reply, " I can't do anything about it. 
Telephone to general headquarters." 

And when Clemenceau had got some general on the 
wire who, politely but firmly, refused to let him take 
unnecessary risks, he would shout back, '' Because the 
staff officers are often kept away from the trenches 
is no reason for forbidding me access to them." 

At other times, by one means or another, he had his 
way. Word would reach headquarters that the Pre- 
mier was in the trenches, but where no one knew ex- 
actly, so quickly did he move from place to place. Just 
after one of the hardest battles of July, 1918, he was 
discovered picking flowers in a shell crater to make the 
tri-color for his buttonhole. 

" Once," says an English writer,' " he stood looking 
down on a heap of French dead. The shells were fall- 
ing near him, the staff officers wanted to move him 
on. 'My old carcass?' he said. 'What an end it 
would be ! ' And he stood looking long at the voung 
dead." 

To all who questioned his policy Clemenceau had but 
one answer, "I am fighting the war." Nor did he 

^ " Clemenceau," Laurence Jerrold, Fortnightly Review, Jan., 1918. 



GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 217 

wage war with his pen alone, but with every means he 
could command. He appealed to America to send 
armies and food, to Britain to send more men. He 
insisted upon putting the Allied armies under the com- 
mand of General Foch. In a speech before the Cham- 
ber of Deputies when he took over the government, he 
plead in words that were never to be forgotten by 
those who lived through that trying time that every- 
thing be sacrificed for victory. 

" You ask me my war aim ? " he said. '' I reply that 
my aim is to be victorious." 

And finally the day came for which the people had 
hoped and despaired alike for nearly four and a half 
years. In the beginning of the war church bells had 
sounded the call to arms; on the 11th of November, 
1918, they announced the signing of the armistice and 
peace. The Chamber of Deputies, which met accord- 
ing to custom that afternoon, was to hear the terms of 
the armistice read by Premier Clemenceau at four 
o'clock. 

Long before the appointed hour the square outside 
the Bourbon Palace, where the Chamber meets, was 
thronged with people, — students, soldiers, laborers, 
men, women, and children — waiting for a sight of the 
Premier. From time to time they sang the Marseil- 
laise and called for Clemenceau so loudly that the 
Chamber found it difficult to hold session. Finally 
Clemenceau went to the window to speak to the people. 
Seeing him, they broke wildly into cheers of '' Long 
live the Tiger," and '' Long live Clemenceau." When 



2i8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

he could make himself heard he asked them to shout 
instead " Long live France." 

Inside the Chamber the people were not less ex- 
pectant. The visitors' galleries were full. Every 
deputy was there. Clemenceau entered so quietly that 
at first no one saw him, then the Assembly rose, cheer- 
ing and applauding. Deputies rushed to shake hands 
with him; his friends sought to congratulate him. 
Finally he raised his hand, asking for silence, and the 
Assembly hushed itself to hear what he had to say. 

" Let us promise in this moment to work always with 
all the strength of our hearts for the public good." 
Then, putting on his glasses, he began to read the 
terms of the armistice. 

'' This morning at eleven o'clock firing ceased on all 
fronts." The applause which greeted this official an- 
nouncement of the end of the war echoed to the roof, 
as it did after the reading of each article. Silence fell 
upon the assembly again when the Premier spoke of 
the honor France owed to her dead. " And when our 
living, on their return, pass in review before us on our 
boulevards," he went on, '' as they march toward the 
Arc de Triomphe, we shall cheer them to the echo. 
Salute them in advance for the world they have made 
anew." 

From the Chamber of Deputies Clemenceau went 
to the Senate, where, after hearing the terms of the 
armistice, a resolution was passed to be placed in the 
council chamber of every city and in the town hall of 
every village throughout France. It read : 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 219 

Georges Clemenceau, President of 
THE Council and Minister of War, and 
Marshal Foch, General-in-chief of 
THE Allied Armies, Have Well De- 
served THE GRATITUDE OF THE COUNTRY. 

At three o'clock on the afternoon of January 18th, 
1919, the Peace Conference was opened in Paris. 
Representatives of the AUied nations and of the new 
nations created by the war met to determine the condi- 
tions of peace. Twenty-eight countries were repre- 
sented, the whole number of delegates being seventy- 
two. 

The assembly held its sessions in a splendid hall in 
the Foreign Ofhce. Its decorations were in white and 
gold and from the ceiling hung four large crystal 
chandeliers. At one end of the chamber, immediately 
behind the president's chair, stood a statue somewhat 
resembling the Statue of Liberty, which represented 
Peace. 

The tables for the delegates were arranged in the 
form of a large horseshoe extending the length of the 
hall. They were covered with green baize and the 
chairs were upholstered in bright red leather. Before 
each place was a portfolio containing everything nec- 
essary for writing. 

The Conference was opened with impressive cere- 
mony. A fanfare of trumpets heralded each dele- 
gation as it arrived, the delegates being arranged 
according to the alphabetical order of the countries 



220 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

represented. Exactly at three o'clock a roll of drums 
announced the arrival of President Poincare. He 
was escorted to the head of the table, where he took 
his place temporarily in the president's chair. Next 
on his right sat President Wilson. All rose as Pres- 
ident Poincare began the opening address. There 
had been a special reason, to which President Poincare 
referred in his speech, for opening the Conference on 
the 18th of January. ''This very day, forty-eight 
years ago, on the 18th of January, 1871, the German 
Empire was proclaimed by an army of invasion in the 
Chateau at Versailles." Now the day which marked 
the end of the Great War marked also the end of the 
German Empire. 

Premier Clemenceau was unanimously chosen Pres- 
ident of the Conference. In his address to the dele- 
gates he again spoke of the fact that it was the first 
time in history that a delegation made up of the civ- 
ilized peoples of the world had come together. " We 
have come here as friends, we must go out of the door 
as friends. That is the first thought I have to ex- 
press to you." And finally, ''The program of this 
Conference has been set up by President Wilson; it 
is no longer a peace concerning greater or smaller 
territories which we have to make, it is no longer a 
peace of continents. It is a peace of peoples. This 
program is sufficient in itself. Gentlemen, let us try 
to act quickly and well." 

In a room next to the hall where the Peace Confer- 
ence held session were some two hundred newspaper 



GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 221 

reporters, "straining eye and ear" to see and hear 
everything that went on. One of them^ describes 
Premier Clemenceau: 

"With his seventy-seven years, Clemenceau is the 
oldest member of the assembly. He is also the most 
vital, externally at least. . . . He shifts in the 
presidential chair now right and now left, throwing 
bits of his own interpretation to Wilson or Lloyd 
George in advance of the official translator. He cor- 
rects, exnphasizes, he underlines the interpreter with 
emphatic nod or takes exception with his gray-gloved 
hands or a swift uplift of the white scythe of his mus- 
tache. His eyes scour the room to study effects. He 
is constantly signaling to the secretaries behind him 
for orders, memoranda, messages to be delivered." 

One day when Clemenceau was returning home 
from a session of the Peace Conference an attempt 
was made on his life. He had just descended from his 
automobile and had started to walk toward his apart- 
ment when he was attacked by the would-be assassin, 
who fired several shots at him, one bullet penetrating 
his lung. With his usual calmness, Clemenceau con- 
tinued walking in the direction of his apartment, 
crossed the vestibule and court, and reached his door 
unaided. Bystanders say that he was smiling an 
ironical smile which seemed to say, " The Tiger is not 
done for yet." 

Some twenty minutes later he was telling President 
Poincare, who had rushed to his bedside, his thoughts 
while the shooting was going on. 

1 " The Peacemakers," Simeon Strunsky, Atlantic, April, 1918. 



222 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

" When I felt the whistle of the first bullets so near 
my head I muttered, 'The animal shoots well/ At 
the second shot, which was indiscreet enough to get 
inside of me as far as my lung, I said, ' But he shoots 
too well' Finally, under this rain of bullets which 
whistled about my ears and almost didn't stop there, 
I reflected, ' At least my enemies will not be able to 
insinuate any longer that I haven't ballast in my head 
— lead ballast.'"^ 

Each day during the two weeks that the Premier 
was confined to his house a stream of visitors, old 
men and women, soldiers, young girls and children, 
came to his door to inquire how he was, to express 
their indignation over the assault, and to bring him 
flowers and delicacies. Conferences were also held 
at his home, for, despite his wound, Clemenceau could 
not be kept from work. 

The Peace Conference was now drawing to a close. 
The settlement had proved, in the words of President 
Wilson, ''a colossal business such as the world had 
never dreamed of before." Five months had been re- 
quired to reconstruct the world that four and a half 
years of war had destroyed. The peace terms, as 
they were finally written, were severe, but, in the 
minds of the statesmen who had drafted them, Ger- 
many had committed a great wrong and must make 
just reparation. By the provisions of the treaty 
several new nations were created out of territory 
formerly belonging to Austria-Hungary and Ger- 

1 Georges Clemenceau, George Le Comte. 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 223 

many. This was done in recognition of the rights of 
all peoples to be free. Alsace and Lorraine were re- 
turned to France. In territories where any doubt 
existed as to the nationality of the majority, the treaty 
provided for a vote of the people. An indemnity of 
$5,000,000,000 was imposed on Germany for the im- 
mediate reparation of the ruined areas of Belgium 
and France, a second payment of $10,000,000,000 to 
be made between 1921 and 1926, and a larger indem- 
nity to be paid in the future, the amount to be deter- 
mined by a commission appointed for that purpose. 
By another article Germany agreed to surrender the 
Kaiser, his statesmen, and the military leaders who 
were responsible for the war, in order that they might 
be tried and punished for the greatest crime in his- 
tory. Finally the treaty provided for a League of 
Nations, " pledged to use their united power to main- 
tain peace." ^ 

After many delays it w^as finally announced that the 
treaty would be signed at Versailles on the 28th of 
June, 1919. 

The Chateau at Versailles had been the scene of the 
signing of the Franco-German peace treaty of 1871. 
In the same room, the famous Hall of Mirrors, the 
new treaty was to be signed. Now, however, the con- 
ditions were exactly reversed. 

'' It was a few minutes after two," writes a corre- 
spondent of the " New York Times,^ " " when the first 

1 Woodrow Wilson, Address cabled to American people. 

2 " The Signing Provides a Brilliant Pageant," Walter Duranty, New 
York Times, June 29, 1919. 



224 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

automobile made its way between dense lines of cav- 
alry, backed by a double rank of infantry with bay- 
onets fixed — there were said to be 20,000 soldiers al- 
together guarding the route — that held back the 
cheering crowds. 

" The scene from the Court of Honor, where I was 
standing, was impressive to a degree. The Place 
d'Armes was a lake of white faces, dappled every- 
where by the bright colors of flags and fringed with 
the horizon blue of troops, whose bayonets flashed like 
flames as the sun peeped for a moment from behind 
heavy clouds. Above, aeroplanes, a dozen or more, 
wheeled and curvetted. 

" One of the earliest to arrive was Marshal Foch, 
amid a torrent of cheering, which broke out even 
louder a few moments later when the massive head of 
Premier Clemenceau, for once with a smile on the 
Tiger's face, was seen through the windows of a 
French military car. To both, as to other chiefs, in- 
cluding Wilson, Pershing, and Lloyd George, the 
troops paid the honor of presenting arms all around 
the courtyard. 

''After Clemenceau they came thick and fast, dip- 
lomats, soldiers. Princes of India in gorgeous turbans, 
Japanese in immaculate Western dress, admirals, fly- 
ing men, Arabs, and a thousand and one picturesque 
uniforms of the French, British and Colonial ar- 
mies. . . . 

"At ten minutes of three came President Wilson, 
in a big black limousine, with his flag, a white eagle on 



GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 225 

a dark blue ground. The warmth of welcome ac- 
corded him bore witness to the place he still holds in 
French hearts." 

Inside the Hall of Mirrors, so-called from the sev- 
enteen great mirrors placed to reflect the beauty of the 
palace gardens, the peace table had been prepared. 
It was in the shape of a hollow rectangle. Two other 
tables held documents containing the changes and 
modifications of the treaty. Thus three persons could 
sign at once. A box of goose quills was placed on 
each of the three tables for those representatives who 
wished to sign in the traditional manner. 

In 1871 a body of Prussian guards had been wit- 
nesses to the signing of the peace. Their places were 
taken in 1919 by French veterans of the Franco-Prus- 
sian war and by detachments of French, British, and 
American troops. 

At ten minutes after three Premier Clemenceau 
announced the opening of the session and, after a 
bare statement of the fact that both sides had agreed 
to accept the treaty, he invited the German delegates 
to come forward and sign. 

" There was a tense pause for a moment. Then, in 
response to M. Clemenceau's bidding, the German 
delegates rose without a word and, escorted by Wil- 
liam Martin, master of ceremonies, moved to the 
table, w^here they placed upon the treaty the signa- 
tures which German government leaders declared 
until recently would never be appended to this treaty. 

"When they regained their seats after the signing, 



226 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

President Wilson immediately rose and, followed by 
the other delegates, moved to the signing tables." ^ 

President Wilson's signature came first for the 
Allies, because the signing was in the alphabetical or- 
der of the countries named in the treaty, the United 
States being officially written the United States of 
America. At 3.49 the booming of cannons announced 
that the ceremony was over, that, after five years of 
war, peace had come. 

It had been planned that, following the ceremony, 
the representatives of the Allies should go to the pal- 
ace gardens to see the fountains play. Premiers 
Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and President Wilson, 
therefore, led the way; the rest got no further than 
the door. 

" W^ith cries of ' Vive Clemenceau ! Vive Wil- 
son ! Vive Lloyd George ! ' dense crowds swept for- 
ward from all parts of the spacious terrace. In an 
instant the three were surrounded by struggling, 
cheering masses of people, fighting among themselves 
for a chance to get at the statesmen.^ 

"Probably the least concerned for their personal 
safety were the three themselves. They went for- 
ward smilingly, as the crowd willed, bowing in re- 
sponse to the ovation, and here and there reaching out 
to shake an insistent hand as they passed on their way 
through the chateau grounds to watch the playing of 
the fountains .... 

^ " Peace Signed," Associated Press Dispatch, New York Times, 
June 29, 1919. 
- Ibid. 



GEORGES CLlfiMENCEAU 227 

"The return of President Wilson, M. Clemenceau, 
and Lloyd George toward the palace was a repetition 
of their outward journey of triumph. As they 
reached the chateau, however, they turned to the left 
instead of entering .... Near by a closed car was 
waiting. The three entered this and drove from the 
grounds together amid a profusion of flowers which 
had been thrust in through the open window." 

REFERENCES 

Clemenceau, the Man and His Time, H. M. Hyndman. 

Georges Clemenceau, Georges LeComte. 

Clemenceau, Gustave Geffroy. 

M. Georges Clemenceau, Georges Brandes, Contemporary Re- 
view, Nov., 1903. 

M. Clemenceau, Laurence Jerrold, Contemporary Review, 
Nov., 1906. 

Georges Clemenceau, Augustin Filon, Fortnightly Review, 
Oct., 1908. 

Clemenceau, Laurence Jerrold, Fortnightly Review, Jan., 1918. 

Clemenceau, Master of France, Sydney Brooks, Harper's 
Weekly, Feb. 20, 1909. 

The One Man of Genius in French Public Life, Current Liter- 
ature, Aug., 1906. 

M. Clemenceau and His Problems, Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic 
Monthly, June, 1918. 

The Nezv French Premier, Charles Johnston, Harper's Weeklv, 
Dec. 1, 1906. 

Clemenceau, H. M. Hyndman, Living Age, July 27, 1918. 

Clemenceau, Graham H. Stuart, North American Review, 
May, 1918. 

Clemenceau, the Indomitable Ruler of France, Current Opin- 
ion, April, 1918. 

The Peacemakers, Simeon Strunsky, Atlantic Monthly, April, 
1919. 

Peace Signed, Associated Press Dispatch, New York Times, 
June 29, 1919. 



IX. ADMIRAL SIMS 

There were three boys in the Sims family, and one 
day their father announced that he had just received 
an appointment to Annapolis for one of his sons. 
It had to be decided immediately which one should go. 
Two of the boys thought that they would not care for 
the navy, and the choice fell upon William. 

William was seventeen at the time, and until then 
probably the thought of a naval career had not entered 
his mind. He had been born at Port Hope in Ontario 
in 1858, but had lived the most of his life on a farm 
in western Pennsylvania. 

The opportunity which had come so unexpectedly 
found him quite unprepared. He had never been a 
student. In fact, "his greater pleasure was not to 
learn," and in school he was counted a slow and rather 
careless pupil. 

The competitive examinations for Annapolis in 
those days comprised mostly grammar school subjects, 
but they were difficult, and the passing mark was high. 
William took them and failed. Then there came an 
awakening. 

It was not customary to give candidates who failed 
a second chance, but William Sims begged so hard 
that the examiners finally consented. And they gave 
him a month in which to prepare. 

228 



ADMIRAL SIMS 229 

At the end of the month he went up again for his 
examinations, and this time he passed. He had 
worked ''terrifically." 

He had now four years of hard study ahead of him, 
and he soon discovered that his scholarship no longer 
concerned himself alone but reflected on the standing 
of his company. If he made a poor recitation or 
'' busted cold," in the language of the cadets, his class- 
mates turned their thumbs down. He was slated for 
disapproval. If his marks were unsatisfactory he 
was put on the " tree," the published list of those who 
are poor in scholarship, and other members of the 
company made it very uncomfortable for him. On the 
other hand, if he made an average of eighty-five per 
cent throughout the year, he was entitled to wear a 
gold star on the collar of his uniform the next year 
and become a popular man with his mates. 

There were two studies that William Sims particu- 
larly disliked, French and mathematics. Since these 
were especially necessary for a naval officer, he made 
up his mind to overcome his dislike for them. He 
succeeded so well that, after his graduation, he asked 
for a year's leave of absence in order that he might 
go to Paris to complete his study of French. To-day 
he speaks French quite as well as English. 

He learned other things that first year not included 
in the curriculum. His company saw that his schol- 
arship was high, but upper-class men looked after his 
table manners. '' Boat your oars," a senior would call 
out to the embarrassed freshman when knife and fork 



!30 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 



rested against his plate, or " Rig in your boom," if his 
elbows stuck out. 

Regulations met him at every turn. Most of them 
had to do with his conduct in class or at drill, but a few, 
it seemed, were designed to govern even his leisure 
time. He must always appear with his shoes black- 
ened and his uniform carefully brushed, and every- 
thing in his room must be in order. When off duty, 
however, he was on his honor. A midshipman's word 
was never questioned. Any misconduct was his own 
aifair, but there was always the honor of the class to 
be upheld, and the class did not deal leniently with 
offenders. 

After graduating from the Academy, a midshipman 
was required to spend two years at sea before he could 
become an officer of the navy. William Sims found 
that the life at sea admitted of considerable improve- 
ment. With twenty-one others he occupied the fore- 
castle of an old sailing ship. The quarters were small 
and the ventilation was bad. On hot nights the men 
could hardly breathe. Sims complained to the com- 
manding officer. 

" As human beings," he said, '' we are entitled to 
so many cubic feet of air." 

''You don't say!" replied the captain. ''Get to 
your quarters and remember, young man, that there 
ain't anything human about a midshipman." 

Sims then wrote to the navy department. When 
no reply came to his letter, he wrote again. Mean- 
while he had investigated the amount of air space in 



ADMIRAL SIMS 231 

barns and found that midshipmen were allowed less 
than pigs and cattle. Though it was considered al- 
most an act of effrontery on the part of a midshipman, 
he sent his figures in to Washington. The improve- 
ment of midshipmen's quarters which finally resulted 
was the first of many reforms Sims was to bring 
about. 

For the next eighteen years, however, not much was 
heard of him except that he was doing his work well. 
A part of that time he was instructor on the school 
ships Saratoga and Philadelphia. Two years he spent 
in China and the far East. Promotion in the navy 
in times of peace is extremely slow, and at forty Sims 
was still a lieutenant. 

When the Spanish- American War came, in 1898, 
he was naval attache to the American Embassy at 
Paris. Probably it was his knowledge of French that 
had gained him the appointment. 

There is a story that, in the beginning of the war. 
Lieutenant Sims was ordered to Liverpool to hurry 
the shipment of a cargo of ammunition much needed 
by our troops in Cuba. About the time the order was 
ready, word came that the Spanish fleet had sailed for 
America, and the Liverpool firm refused to let the 
loaded ship start unless it was insured against loss. 
Time was too valuable to wait for the government to 
act, and Lieutenant Sims pledged himself personally 
to be responsible for any loss if the ship would only 
sail before sunset. At the time he did not consider 
how long it would take him to pay the bill, but after- 



232 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

wards he was amazed when he remembered that the 
value of the cargo was a milHon dollars. 

His work in Paris and Petrograd, where he also 
served as naval attache, gave him the opportunity to 
see what other navies were doing, and he woke up to 
the fact that the American navy was very inferior to 
those of European nations. We had beautiful ships, 
trim, clean, and white, but they were not fighting ships. 
Again Sims reported his observations to the navy de- 
partment. His letters were filed away and nothing 
came of them. 

In 1900 he was again transferred to the China 
station. He reported for duty on the U. S. S. Ken- 
tucky, which had put in at Gibraltar on its way to the 
Orient. The Kentucky was a ship of the type to which 
Sims had objected. Though her captain thought she 
was the pride of the navy, the junior officer, '^with 
two fingers on the typewriter,'' says Lieutenant Reut- 
erdahl, " pointed out that she was no ship at all." 

"We should have shed tears when we launched 
her,'' he argued, '' instead of sprinkling her with cham- 
pagne." The report which went to Washington 
found its way into a pigeon hole marked '^ Lieutenant 
Sims." 

Out in China Sims met a British naval officer 
named Captain Percy Scott, who was interested in 
new methods, and the two officers became good friends. 

One day Captain Scott told Sims that he had in- 
vented a device for improving the marksmanship of 
his gunners. It was generally conceded at the time 



ADMIRAL SIMS 233 

that the marksmanship in all navies was poor, for am- 
munition was too expensive to permit of gun practice 
every day. Captain Scott's device was simple and in- 
expensive. To the barrel of a big gun was attached a 
tube, which fired a bullet at a small target set up at 
close range. If the small target was hit, the gun was 
accurately aimed to hit the large target miles away. 

Sims was much impressed with this scheme and 
made use of it on a number of the guns of the Ken- 
tucky. At the next target practice the marksmanship 
of his crews surpassed that of all the other crews in 
the Asiatic fleet. This convinced him that the scheme 
was a practical one, and he wrote at once to Washing- 
ton, sending a full report of his experiment and urging 
that Captain Scott's system be adopted by the Ameri- 
can navy. 

Months passed and no reply came. Sims knew as 
well as anyone that the destination of all his letters 
was either a pigeon hole or a waste basket, but he kept 
on writing. His thought then, as it had been from the 
first, was to improve the service. His reports, how- 
ever, had not resulted in any change of system, for an 
inefficient navy reflected on the navy department, and 
the department did not want a lieutenant out in China 
to show up its faults. 

Nevertheless, the letters continued to come, and 
finally one reached President Roosevelt himself. 

Meanwhile information had come from other 
sources that the navy was not very efficient. In the 
Spanish War, so recently ended, the records of our 



234 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

fleet showed that, out of every hundred shots fired 
on the Cuban coast, only four had reached the mark. 

Therefore, when President Roosevelt received 
Lieutenant Sims's letter, he determined to find out for 
himself w^hether the marksmanship in the navy was 
really as bad as had been reported. If it was, some- 
thing should be done about it, but if it was not. Lieu- 
tenant Sims, who had come very near to criticizing 
his superior ofhcers, ought to lose his rank. Five of 
the best battleships of the Atlantic fleet were ordered 
out, and for five hours they steamed back and forth 
firing at a target larger than the one used regularly 
for gun practice. An examination of the mark at the 
end of that time showed that only three hits had been 
made. 

When President Roosevelt heard this, he immedi- 
ately recalled Lieutenant Sims from China and put 
him in charge of the navy's target practice. 

The building of a more effective navy was to 
be Sims's w^ork. The methods w^hich he introduced 
were then little known ; to-day they would be termed 
the methods of scientific management. With a stop 
watch he timed and coordinated the movements of a 
crew so that not a moment was wasted in the firing 
of a gun. In this way he reduced the firing time from 
five minutes to thirty seconds. He told the bluejack- 
ets that higher ratings and extra pay would be given to 
the men who made the best records, and soon there 
was great rivalry among crews. A good gun pointer 
became the most popular man aboard ship. Then it 



ADMIRAL SIMS 235 

was ship against ship and squadron against squadron 
for the honor of flying the pennant of the winner. 

A record to compare with that of our fleet during 
the Spanish War is that of the South Carolina, a few 
years after Sims's methods had been introduced. 
Firing twelve-inch guns, one of the Carolina's crews 
recorded sixteen hits out of sixteen shots in four min- 
utes thirty-one seconds. This was battle practice; 
our navy had learned to shoot. 

Another of Sims's reforms was to create a better 
spirit between officers and men. In the old days an 
officer would have said, in the words of Sims's first 
captain, that there was nothing human about a blue- 
jacket. An officer's duty was to work his men as long 
and as hard as he could. With this way of thinking 
Sims radically disagreed. He believed that a friendly 
feeling between officers and men was necessary to 
the making of a better navy. 

" The happy ship," he said, " is almost invariably 
the efficient ship," and he began another one of his in- 
vestigations. The many ways he found of adding to 
the comforts of the men won their loyalty at once. 

On board the superdreadnought Nevada, which 
Sims commanded just before the European war, the 
bluejackets wanted some way of showing their affec- 
tion for Captain Sims and decided to make some- door- 
mats for his cabin. Knowing his motto to be " Cheer 
up and get busy," they wove the first part of it into 
the mats, so that everyone stepping across the thresh- 
old was invited to "cheer up." Then in the cabin 



236 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

port holes they arranged electric lights that threw 
out on the decks the words, '' Get busy." This was the 
relationship between officer and men that Sims worked 
constantly to bring about. It is said that in ten years 
his reforms have revolutionized the navy's spirit. 

Some twenty years ago the question of larger ships 
was being considered by naval experts all over the 
world. The biggest ship of the day was the battle- 
ship, which carried both large and small guns. In 
1903 Lieutenant Homer C. Poundstone of the Ameri- 
can navy invented a great heavy armored, high-speed 
ship with all big guns. Sims was much interested in 
this new type of craft and, with Lieutenant Pound- 
stone, worked out all the details of the plan. Both 
officers believed it to be the fighting ship of the future. 
They named it the U. S. S. '' Scared-o-Nothing/* 
Two years later, there appeared in the British navy 
an all-big-gun ship, the first of the kind to be built. 
It was called the '' Dreadnought f' 

From the time Sims first heard of Lieutenant 
Poundstone's big ship, he had tried repeatedly to have 
the plans accepted by the navy department, but it was 
not until Great Britain and Italy actually began to 
build dreadnoughts that the department finally con- 
sented. Plans for the Michigan and the South Caro- 
lina, which had been ordered as battleships, were 
then changed and these became our first dread- 
noughts. 

One other achievement of Sims's was to prove of 
great value in the European war. This was his work 



ADMIRAL SIMS 237 

with the destroyers. In 1911, when Captain Sims 
was a man of fifty-three, he entered the Naval War 
College at Newport, Rhode Island, and worked there 
as an ordinary student for two years, chiefly upon the 
problems of destroyers. 

Destroyers were comparatively new ships in the 
navy and it was not very clear what their function in 
battle was to be, whether they should keep to the work 
for which they were originally built, destroying tor- 
pedo boats, or whether they should be used in attack 
against the giant battleships. If they were to be used 
in attack, their movements must be regulated and 
timed. 

When Sims left the War College, he was given com- 
mand of the Torpedo Flotilla of the Atlantic fleet, 
which afforded him the opportunity of trying out in a 
practical way the problems over which he had worked. 
He converted the destroyer flotilla from a mere col- 
lection of ships into a coordinated fighting machine, 
and it was this work which enabled us to take our 
place in the fighting line just five weeks after war was 
declared with Germany. 

Sims was President of the Naval War College when 
war came. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to 
the rank of vice-admiral, and since the war has ended 
he has been made an admiral, which is the highest 
rank in the navy. 

Before war w^as actually declared, he was sent to 
London to confer with the British Admiralty. He 
has himself told the story of his departure. 



238 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

'' While I was President of the Naval War College 
at Newport, I was ordered to report without delay to 
the Secretary of the Navy at Washington. I was not 
notified of the nature of the business to be discussed. 
When I arrived, I was received in secret conference 
with Secretary Daniels and Admiral Benson, chief 
of naval operations. 

" I was told that it looked as though we should go 
to war with Germany. They then explained to me 
that I was to go at once to see the people on the other 
side and reach an understanding as to how the United 
States could best cooperate with the Allied sea force 
in operation against Germany. 

" They told me that one aide would be allowed me 
and that his identity must not be known until it might 
be decided to reveal it on his arrival on the other side. 

*T chose Commander J. V. Babcock, who was my 
aide at Newport. We both put on civilian clothes, 
dropped our names, and assumed others more suitable 
to the occasion. Babcock and I chose ' Richardson ' 
and 'Robertson' as near as I can recall. We sailed 
from New York on March 31, 1917, on the steamship 
New York. No one on the steamer recognized us, 
and we passed the trip as ordinary voyagers. 

''We received the news of the declaration of war 
by the ship's wireless on April 6th, but it did not dis- 
turb us. We reached Liverpool on April 9th in a 
thick fog. Entering the harbor, the New York struck 
a mine, which blew a hole in one of her forward com- 
partments. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 239 

''At Liverpool we went ashore like anyone else. 
A special train was waiting at the landing stage, how- 
ever, with x\dmiral Hope of the British Admiralty. 
It waited there until we got aboard, then pulled out 
for London. 

"We arrived at London April 10th, still wearing 
civilian clothes. We went at once to the Admiralty 
offices, where we had a conference with Admiral Jell- 
icoe. 

"On April 13th, at a luncheon in London, the 
United States ambassador made a formal announce- 
ment that I had arrived in the country. After that I 
went about in uniform." 

The first of our ships to reach the fighting zone 
were the destroyers. From their camouflage they 
were known as " Sims's circus." They were barred, 
striped, and daubed in all colors. Breaking the out- 
line renders a ship less visible to the enemy and often 
makes it difficult to tell in which direction it is moving. 

The destroyers had sailed, prepared in every detail 
for war, yet not even the commander knew that the 
flotilla was bound for Europe. The instructions were 
to "proceed to a point fifty miles east of Cape Cod 
and there to open sealed orders." 

The Germans, however, had learned of the sailing 
of the flotilla, knew of its destination and the day of 
its arrival, and, the night before it was to reach 
Queenstown, Ireland, had planted a field of mines at 
the entrance to the harbor. In spite of this effort on 
the part of the enemy, our destroyers slipped into port 



240 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 







Admiral Sims 



ADMIRAL SIMS 241 

safely, the Stars and Stripes flying from their masts, 
"their funnels white with salt spray." 

On shore a crowd had gathered to greet them and, 
from the time they were first sighted, filing in a long 
line into the harbor, cheer after cheer went up, until 
they finally dropped anchor and the officers came 
ashore. 

It was a simple greeting of a few hundred people, 
quite dififerent from the one Queenstown had planned. 
MiHtary bands and a celebration to last several days 
had been ordered, but at the last moment Admiral 
Sims arrived and asked that all preparations be 
stopped. Our destroyers were not coming for pleas- 
ure, he said, but to fight. 

Nevertheless, the British commander who greeted 
our flotilla was hardly prepared for the senior officer's 
answer to his question, '' When will you be ready for 
service?" 

''We can start at once, sir," the American com- 
mander replied. It was expected that the destroyers 
would need time to prepare for war service. 

"We made preparations on the way over," the 
American officer continued. '' That is why we are 
ready." And within an hour after their arrival at 
Queenstown the destroyers were on their way to the 
fighting zone. 

At this time, as Admiral Sims has since said, the 
Germans were w^inning the war. Every month their 
submarines destroyed between 700,000 and 800,000 
tons of Allied shipping. The American navy adopted 



242 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

new methods of combating submarines. At first 
they were only experiments, but they proved so suc- 
cessful that the shipping losses rapidly decreased from 
that time on. The principal methods used were three : 
first, the convoy system, which was Admiral Sims's 
own idea; second, the depth bomb; and third, the 
listening device for detecting submarines. The last 
two were American inventions, sent over by the Amer- 
ican Board of Inventions. 

To fight submarines was especially the work of the 
destroyers. They are slender, trim looking ships, 
some three hundred feet long, with a breadth of only 
thirty feet. Steaming at high speed, a destroyer darts 
upon a submarine, endeavoring to ram it before it can 
submerge. Failing to do this, it then wheels in cir- 
cles or in zigzag lines and drops its depth bombs. ' The 
bombs explode eighty feet below the sea's surface, 
destroying everything within one hundred fifty yards. 
They have accounted for more submarines than any 
other single device. 

A naval officer on board one of qur first transports 
tells w^hat happened during a submarine attack when 
a destroyer came to the rescue."" 

''Like a striking rattlesnake, it darted between a 
couple of transports. Her nose was so deep in the 
sea as to be almost buried, while a great wave at the 
stern threw a shower of spray on the soldiers massed 
at the transport's bow. That destroyer ran right 
along the line of bubbles like a hound following a trail, 

1 Our Navy in the War, Lawrence Perry. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 243 

and when it came to the spot where the commander 
estimated the submarine must be lurking he released 
a depth bomb. A column of smoke and foam rose 
fifty feet in the air, and the destroyer herself rose half 
out of the water under the shock of the explosion. 
On the water were seen oil and fragments of wood and 
steel." 

Convoy work was exacting, patrol duty hardly less 
so. In seas strewn with wreckage, where any stick 
resembled a periscope, a patrol ship had to be on the 
alert constantly. A destroyer on patrol sometimes 
covered six or seven thousand miles a month, and its 
patrol beat might be anywhere from the Mediterra- 
nean to the North Sea. 

But, whatever the dangers and hardships, hunting 
submarines was " the greatest game in the world," and 
both officers and men counted themselves lucky to be 
with the destroyers. A song went round among the 
crews that ran like this : 

" Talk about your battleships, cruisers, scouts, and all ; 
Talk about your Fritzers who are waiting for a fall ; 
Talk about your Coast Guard, it's brave they have to be ; 
But Admiral Sims's flotilla is the terror of the sea." 

The number of our destroyers in the beginning of 
the w^ar was, however, too small to meet the needs of 
the patrol service, and soon France sent in a call for 
more ships to guard her coasts. Until more destroy- 
ers could be built, the only available ships were those 
of the naval auxiliary, private yachts turned over to 
the navy for war service. 



244 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

So frail did they appear for the task ahead of them 
that the navy men dubbed them the '' Suicide Fleet/' 
Their crews numbered a few enlisted men and one or 
two petty officers. The rest were chiefly college stu- 
dents. What they lacked in training they made up 
for in their eagerness to serve; when it came to fight- 
ing submarines, no destroyer fleet was going to get 
ahead of them. 

Arriving at Brest one day, the Suicide Fleet found 
no end of work waiting for it. It had been sent for 
chiefly to convoy shipping along the French coast. 
This was the route to the Mediterranean and here the 
submarines were most active. Much of the convoy- 
ing had to be done at night. With twenty to thirty 
merchant ships depending on it for safety, one of these 
yachts would feel its way in the darkness through the 
dangerous reefs and shoals of the Bay of Biscay, 
reaching some port only to take on coal and depart im- 
mediately. There was neither rest nor leisure for the 
crews as long as their boats held together. 

In the chart room there was always a pile of radio 
messages. And too often there came a message which 
read like this : ' " From S. S. , S. O. S. Am be- 
ing torpedoed, thirty miles west of . Shot just 

missed by five hundred yards. Am being shelled. 
Hope to see you soon." 

To which the yacht would reply, " Keep on that 
course. We are heading for you. Hold on! Help 

1 With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 



ADMIRAL SIMS ' 245 

Perhaps the ship that was being shelled was one of a 
convoy in which case the other ships were obliged to 
steer a wild, zigzag course to escape a similar fate. 
Not infrequently they collided. If it were night, 
darkness added to the confusion. Unable to see the 
submarine, they would fire in the direction where they 
thought it might be. The answer was shells and more 
shells. Explosions told where a ship was struck, ex- 
plosions and the cries of men calling for help as they 
floated about in the icy water. 

Steaming up to a scene like this, the yacht would 
begin rescue work. Flashing on a searchlight, though 
to do so was to risk being torpedoed, she circled round 
and round, gathering in the men one at a time. She 
did not get them all. Some drifted quickly out of 
sight ; others went down before she could reach them. 
Most of those rescued made work for the ship's doctor. 
Generally they were either wounded or frozen. Only 
now and then a man would clamber up the ship's side, 
grinning, and call out cheerfully, ''Where do we go 
from here?" 

The storms that battered them were some of the 
worst ever known in the east Atlantic. Heavy seas 
smashed, masts, life boats, and now and then the bow 
of a ship itself. Wind at sixty to a hundred miles an 
hour would roll them over until their funnels all but 
touched the water. Torpedoed in a sea like this, they 
were helpless; the waves would sweep the men over- 
board before they could reach their guns. Often it 
meant suicide for them to put to sea, yet they never 



246 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

failed to leave on schedule. Going down was only a 
part of the ''great game." 

So entirely was the attention of the Americans 
centered upon German submarines that for a time they 
forgot that we had submarines of our own. For 
months after the declaration of war nothing was 
heard of them. They worked quietly, patrolling our 
coasts, guarding our harbors. Then one day the 
Secretary of the Navy announced that a flotilla of 
American submarines had crossed the Atlantic. They 
had crossed in December of 1917 in severe winter 
storms which had carried them far out of their course 
and made their crossing a memorable achievement. 

"On all the boats the lookout on the bridge had 
to be lashed in place," wrote the captain of one of 
these submarines,^ ''and every once in a while a 
couple of tons of water would come tumbling over 
him. 

" You can imagine what it was like inside. To be- 
gin with, the oily air was none too sweet, because 
every time we opened a hatch we shipped enough water 
to make the old hooker look like a start at a swimming 
tank; and then she was lurching so continuously and 
violently that to move six feet was an expedition. 
The men were wonderful, wonderful ! Each man at 
his allotted task and — what's that English word? — 
carrying on. Our little cook couldn't do a thing with 
his stove, might as well have tried to cook on a minia- 

1 With the American Submarines, Henry B. Beston, Atlantic 
Monthly, November, 1918. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 247 

ture earthquake, but he saw that all of us had some- 
thing to eat, doing his bit game as could be. 

'' Since it was impossible to make any headway, we 
lay to for forty-eight hours. The deck began to go 
the second morning, some of the plates being ripped 
off. And blow — I never saw anything like it. The 
disk of the sea was just one great ragged mass of 
foam being hurled through space by a wind screaming 
past with the voice of a million express trains. 

" Perhaps you are wondering why we didn't sub- 
merge. We simply couldn't use up our electricity. 
It takes oil and running on the surface to create the 
electric power, and we had a long, long journey ahead. 
Then ice began to form on the superstructure, and we 
had to get out a crew to chop it off. It was something 
of a job; there wasn't much to hang on to, and the 
waves were still breaking over us. But we freed her 
of the danger and she went on." 

After three weeks of this, when Admiral Sims was 
beginning to feel some anxiety about his submarines, 
they came into port one day, shipshape, with flags 
flying. They were to become a part of the subma- 
rine patrol, working in waters around the British Isles. 
Their work also was to hunt enemy submarines. By 
means of the listening device a German submarine 
could be detected miles away. Once an enemy boat 
was followed eighteen hours by an American subma- 
rine before it was caught. 

'' But aren't our submarines ever mistaken for Ger- 
man ? " someone asked a submarine officer. 



248 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

'^ Oh, yes," he answered in a matter-of-fact way. 

To be mistaken for the enemy, to have torpedoes 
fired at you and depth bombs dropped on you, to run 
the risk of being rammed by one of your own destroyers 
— that was all a part of the business of the submarine 
patrol. There was even a grimmer side than this. 
That was to go scouting about under the sea and come 
unexpectedly upon the enemy. " Sometimes," re- 
marked a British captain, ''nobody knows just what 
happens. Out there in the deep water, whatever 
happens happens in a hurry." And on the navy rec- 
ords there is entered against the number of the sub- 
marine which met the enemy simply the item, ''Failed 
to report." 

One day, some months after we entered the war, 
there arrived at an English port five strange looking 
battleships, with towers of latticed steel unlike any- 
thing in European navies. " At sight of them," says 
an English writer, "the gray, war-weary battle fleet 
of Britain burst into a roar of welcome such as had 
never before greeted a stranger within the gates, 
either in peace or war." That same day Admiral Sims 
cabled the navy department in Washington, "Ar- 
rived as per schedule." 

The American battleships had come to take part in 
the fighting, for it was expected that more naval 
battles would be fought before the end of the war. 
Since the battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916, the German 
fleet had remained at home, yet every now and then 
there came a rumor that the enemy was out. On these 



ADMIRAL SIMS 249 

occasions the British fleet would leave its base and 
search the whole North Sea. Such an alarm was 
sounded soon after the arrival of our battleships. 
^' Under way at three o'clock," was the order, and in 
the silence and darkness of early morning the whole 
fleet moved out. The place of honor was given to the 
American ships, which, operating as part of the Brit- 
ish fleet, now became known as the Sixth Battle 
Squadron. Steaming in line, just so many hundred 
yards apart, each battleship kept in its appointed place; 
following, came the cruisers, the destroyers, and the 
submarines. 

Morning brought wind, rain, and fog. ^' No weather 
for a scrap unless it is a short and merry one," 
an officer remarked, and disappointment settled upon 
the Americans. It was due them to have just one 
" crack " at the Germans. 

The high seas were making life most uncomfortable 
aboard ship.^ '' Men moved with care lest they to- 
boggan across the deck and break a leg. Water 
swashed in when the gun-ports rolled under, and bare- 
legged bluejackets were baling the floors with buckets. 
It was damp, gloomy, and dismal below with the 
hatches battened, but the ships had bucked through 
heavier seas than this, and these hundreds of Ameri- 
can sailors were salt-water philosophers." 

Despite the weather the fleet still headed for the Ger- 
man coast. A stick appearing suddenly a few hun- 
dred yards to the starboard brought down a shell from 
the gunners. No risks could be taken in these waters, 

^ With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 



250 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

and the red flag, warning of submarines, was sent 
up the signal yard. 

After twelve hours without sight of the enemy, the 
fleet reluctantly turned back. It w^as no use to go on 
in such weather. The next time, perhaps, there would 
be better luck. 

The opportunity to engage the German fleet in 
battle, however, never came. The only time our 
battleships met the enemy w^as on the day when the 
German fleet surrendered, and the Sixth Battle Squad- 
ron, as part of the Grand Fleet, escorted it to May 
Island off the coast of Scotland. 

It happened that on Christmas some of our battle- 
ships were in port.^ ''Heard about it?'' asked a 
sergeant of the marines. 

''Well, there was Christmas trees and fake fire- 
places all over the ships and socks hung up for dear 
old Santa Claus to slide down through the ventilator. 
And the Admiral pulled off his favorite stunt, which 
was to invite a million or so poor kids aboard and give 
them a party. Counting noses, I suppose there was a 
thousand of them, to get it right. They were war 
orphans or their daddies were serving in France. We 
blew them off to a turkey dinner and a moving picture 
show and clothes and shoes and ten shillings, in cash, 
per kid, and w^hat they couldn't eat without busting 
they carried home in paper bags. It was no trouble 
at all to raise funds. And was it worth it ? Say, you 
forgot to be homesick. 

1 With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 251 

'' The kids sang Christmas songs and cheered the 
flas: and the Admiral and the crews and the navy. 
Then a gang of minstrels came over in boats from 
some British ships and serenaded us and we gave 
them a band concert and, when we turned in that night, 
it didn't seem such a bum Christmas after all." 

When our navy had been at war a little more than 
a year it numbered a thousand ships. The trade 
routes for which it was responsible were not as many 
as Great Britain's, but our coast line was longer. 
From Puget Sound to San Diego Bay, from Maine to 
Panama, and on the shores of the Great Lakes, our 
patrols protected transports and shipping. Our 
dreadnoughts and battleships, with the exception of 
those in foreign service, formed a line of defense ex- 
tending along the entire Atlantic coast and served also 
as training schools for war. 

Submarine nets protected our harbors, mine sweep- 
ers worked continuously outside the harbor entrances 
to keep them free from mines, while scout boats and 
submarines watched for any sign of the enemy in 
American waters. All this was the " silent service " 
about which one heard little, but without which our 
fighting fleets could not have carried on. 

Occasionally passers-by on the streets of London 
w^ould turn to look at a tall straight man, wearing the 
blue uniform of the American navy, and remark, 
''That's Admiral Sims." He was usually seen going 
or coming from one of two places, the British Admi- 



252 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

ralty or a mansion in Grosvenor Gardens, West Lon- 
don, over which floated the American flag. This 
latter place was Admiral Sims's office, the London 
headquarters of the American navy. 

It was through this office that all information 
reached Washington regarding the needs and organ- 
ization of our navy in the war zone. Methods and 
plans changed as the character of the war changed, 
and all instructions had to come from Admiral Sims. 

From the moment he arrived in London he made it 
clear that the policy of the American navy was not to 
be one of rivalry but of cooperation with our allies. 
If the British had methods that were better than ours, 
we should adopt British methods. The real object 
being to win the war, it did not matter by what meth- 
ods the end was achieved. 

It was the business of Admiral Sims's organization, 
too, to watch the enemy, to know what German boats 
were on the seas and their approximate location. Re- 
ports reached the London office daily, and orders were 
flashed to ships from the North Sea to the Mediterra- 
nean. 

In June of 1917 Admiral Sims was given command 
of the Allied fleets in Irish waters. It was the first 
honor of its kind that the British navy had ever paid to 
a foreign naval officer. This work required that he 
spend a large part of his time at Queenstown, Ireland, 
and a fine old house, with beautiful lawns and gardens, 
situated on the heights above the town, was turned 
over to him. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 253 

His office at sea was on board the Melville, mother 
ship of a destroyer squadron, but he never remained 
very long in one place. One day he might be in Lon- 
don, the next in Paris, and on the third day at the 
naval base. Though he worked long hours, some- 
times staying in his office until midnight, he was care- 
ful to keep in the best of health. He has always en- 
joyed his work above everything. 

Some of his English friends have tried to interest 
him in hunting and fishing, but he is not a sportsman; 
he does not like to kill birds or animals. His idea of 
recreation is something quite different. In his spare 
moments he gets a great deal of fun from writing lim- 
ericks and humorous verse. 

"One night when the American fleet was lying at 
anchor in the Bay of Guaconabays," writes an English 
correspondent, '' the officers assembled to discuss naval 
subjects. Sims was leaning on a table, busy with pen 
and paper. Officers thought that the Admiral was oc- 
cupied with an order or a dispatch. After an hour he 
handed each officer a limerick on the subject he had 
been discussing." 

One other pleasure which Admiral Sims enjoys 
quite as much as his work is playing games of all sorts 
with his children. When he was President of the Na- 
val War College, he used to ride a bicycle to school ev- 
ery morning with one of the children perched on the 
handlebars. Callers at his home have frequently 
found him sitting on the floor, entertaining the baby. 

Outside of the navy, people have known very little 



254 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

about Admiral Sims. He prefers not to be known, 
and has asked reporters repeatedly not to mention his 
name in dispatches. Lieutenant Reuterdahl, writing 
of Admiral Sims, says that he has known him for sev- 
enteen years and has never been permitted to tell a 
story about him. 

First and last his thought has been for the navy. 
Officers agree that Admiral Sims, more than any other 
person, has been responsible for making our navy 
efficient. The principles for which he has fought so 
persistently, however, include not only better methods 
of doing things, but improved conditions of work and 
a friendly relationship between officers and men. It 
is the recognition of the human quality in work which 
Admiral Sims believes makes for the highest type of 
efficiency. 

REFERENCES 

The Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 

Our Navy in the War, Lawrence Perry. 

Naval Academy of the United States, A. D. Brown, Harper's, 
July, 187i: 

United States Naval Academy, C. H. Foster, Scribner's, June, 
1918. 

Admiral Sims, Henry Leach, Living Age, Dec. 22, 1917. 

Sims's Successful Indiscretions, Robert F. Wilson, World's 
Work, June, 1917. 

Sims's Circus, H. Whitaker, Independent, June 1, 1918. 

One Thousand Ships in the United States Navy, Current His- 
tory Magazine, Feb., 1918. 

United States Navy Begins Operations, New York Times, May 
17, 1917. 

The Cheer Up Admiral, Henry Reuterdahl, Saturday Evening 
Post, June 30, 1917. 



ADMIRAL SIMS 255 

Admiral Sims in Team Work for Victory, Scientific American, 

April 12, 1919. 
Admiral Sims and His Fleet, Living Age, June 8, 1918. 
The Very Human Admiral, Independent, April 21, 1919. 
With the American Submarines, Henry B. Beston, Atlantic 

Nov., 1918. 



X. GENERAL PERSHING 

Laclede, Missouri, in 1860, was a village of some 
six hundred inhabitants. A one-room school, a few 
stores, and a small cluster of houses comprised the 
town. A railroad, running from Hannibal to St. 
Joseph, had only just reached Laclede. There were 
no sidewalks, and the streets were hardly better than 
muddy country roads. Such was the town of General 
Pershing's boyhood. 

At the time of his birth, September 13, 1860, his 
father was a section foreman on the new railroad, 
and John was born in a farmhouse not far from the 
place of his father's work. A few years later his 
father bought a store in Laclede and the family moved 
into town. John F. Pershing, the general's father, 
was an excellent business man; in time he became 
fairly well-to-do. In addition to the store, he also 
owned several farms, and the family moved into a 
large white house on Main Street, the largest house 
in town. 

There were nine children in the Pershing family, 
of whom only six lived. John was the eldest. A 
friend who remembers him as a boy has described him 
as having light curly hair and black eyes. " He was 
square-jawed and iron-willed. His shoulders were 

256 



GENERAL PERSHING 257 

square, and he was straight as an arrow. He had a 
firm, set mouth and a high forehead, and even as a 
boy was a dignified chap. And yet he was thor- 
oughly democratic in his manner and beHef." 

Another friend, who was also a playmate in La- 
clede, says that '' as a boy, Pershing was not unlike 
thousands of other boys of his age. . . . He knew 
the best places to shoot squirrels or quail, knew where 
to find the hazel or hickory nuts. He knew, too, 
where ttie coolest and deepest swimming pools in the 
Locust, Muddy, or Turkey creeks were." 

His first school was the little one-room school- 
house. He was an average student, exceptionally 
good in mathematics, and he liked books. As a boy 
he had no desire to be a soldier, but he wanted an 
education and he went after knowledge in the same 
way that he did everything else, that is with all the 
energy he had. The boys used to say of him that he 
hit hard. 

When he was thirteen a catastrophe befell the 
family. That year his father lost everything he had 
except an interest in two farms. For the next three 
years he tried farming with John's help. But in 1875 
there came a year of drought, when no crops were 
harvested at all, and the elder Pershing had to seek 
other means of making a living. John now under- 
took to run the farms in his father's absence and to 
help support the family. 

He had heard that the negro school in Laclede was 
in need of a teacher. It was a position that paid little 



258 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

and was difficult to fill. He was only seventeen at 
the time, but he was tall and strong, and he had a 
reputation as a student. When he applied for the 
position, therefore, the school board decided to let 
him have it. He taught only one term but his expe- 
rience enabled him to secure a place as teacher in 
Prairie Mound, a neighboring town some miles away. 
While teaching there, he read law at the same time, 
for his big ambition was to become a lawyer. 

Some time later, with the money saved from teach- 
ing, he entered the Normal School at Kirksville, Mis- 
souri, and was a student there for two years. In the 
spring of 1882, during his last term at the normal 
school, he chanced to see the announcement of a com- 
petitive examination for the West Point Military 
Academy and decided that he would try for it. He 
did not even then think of a military career. He 
simply wanted an education and West Point offered 
an unusual opportunity. 

Without saying anything to his parents about his 
intention, John went to Trenton, Missouri, to try for 
the appointment. There were seventeen other con- 
testants besides himself. The examination, however, 
developed into a contest between John Pershing and 
a boy named Frank Higginbotham. Higginbotham 
was the first to finish, but this fact did not trouble John. 
He was careful to read over each answer and to prove 
every problem before he turned in his papers. 

That night it was announced that John Pershing 
had won by a single point. Writing of this event 



GENERAL PERSHING 259 

many years later, Pershing says that the day he won 
his appointment was the proudest day of his hfe. 

''An old friend of the family happened to be in 
Trenton that day," he writes/ " and, passing on the 
opposite side of the street, called to me and said, 
' John, I hear you passed with flying colors.' 

"In all seriousness, feeling the importance of my 
success, I naively replied in a loud voice, ' Yes, I 
did/" 

The examination which he had just passed, how- 
ever, was only for the purpose of selecting a candi- 
date. The regular entrance examination was yet to 
come and John now went home to inform his parents 
of his success and to get their permission to go East 
to study. Three months later he passed his final ex- 
amination, twenty-second on the list, and was admit- 
ted to West Point on July 1, 1882. 

Every plebe, or first-year man, at West Point has 
to undergo a certain amount of '' deviling." One of 
the inventions of upper classmen for trying out the 
disposition of a plebe was known as " dragging." A 
cadet was seized in his bed, " preferably on a rainy 
night," carried out of his tent and dragged by his 
heels the length of the camp street. Not infrequently 
the street was lined with persecutors who cooled his 
temper by dashing buckets of cold water on him as he 
passed by. General Pershing still remembers the 
draggings he got the first year. He took it in good 
spirit, however, and found some satisfaction in devis- 

1 Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam. 



26o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

ing new ways of deviling plebes when he should be 
an upper classman. 

Another memorable event of that first year, says 
General Pershing, was his first turn at guard/ 

'' I got along all right during the day, but at night, 
on the color line, my troubles began. Of course I 
was scared beyond the point of properly applying any 
of my orders. A few minutes after taps ghosts of 
all sorts began to appear from all directions. I se- 
lected a particularly bold one and challenged accord- 
ing to orders. 

"^Halt! Who comes there?' 

" At that time the ghost stood still in his tracks. I 
then said, ' Halt ! Who stands there ? ' whereupon 
the ghost, who was carrying a chair, sat down. 
I promptly said, ' Halt! Who sits there? ' " 

At the end of his first year Pershing stood twenty- 
second in a class of seventy-seven. In another year 
he had dropped to the thirty-fourth place. He found 
his studies hard. French and Spanish were particu- 
larly troublesome, and many a Saturday afternoon, 
the only free time he had, went to " boning " French 
lest he fail to get through. 

It was as a soldier rather than as a student that he 
made his record. In each of the three years in which 
officers are chosen from the cadet ranks John Per- 
shing headed the list. Upper-class men tremendously 
respected his discipline. In his senior year he was 
Captain of Company A , the highest honor a cadet can 

1 Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam, 



GENERAL PERSHING 261 

win. The day on which he won his captaincy was 
the chmax of days," he writes. " No honor can 
ever come equal to that." 

At the end of the second year he was allowed his 
hrst furlough and went home for the summer That 
summer he tried to come to some decision about his 
career. Lymg out under the trees, he and his old 
friend, Charley .Spurgeon, talked it over. John still 
clung to the idea of studying law. 

" This country is at peace now and it's going to 
stay at peace," he said. " There won't be a gun fired 
m the next hundred years. The army is no place for 
me m peace time. I'd start in as a second lieutenant 
and get to be a first lieutenant only when a first lieu- 
tenant died. The world is going to be too peaceful 
m the future to make the army look promising as a 
career." 

As late as his senior year he was still undecided and 
was planning then with three of his classmates to 
resign from the army and start some kind of irri- 
gation project out in Oregon. But when, upon his 
graduation, he was assigned to active duty with the 
Sixth Cavalry, all thoughts of a career outside the 
army were given up. 

For the next five years Lieutenant Pershing was 
engaged in hunting rebel Indians in the West, first 
in New Mexico, then in the Bad Lands of South 
Dakota. He did not take part in any battles, but his 
work was trying and often dangerous. Each country 
had its hardships. Under the scorching sun of the 



262 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

treeless mesas of New Mexico thirst caused intense 
suffering; often forty to fifty miles lay between water 
holes. In South Dakota the other extreme was 
reached. There the men had to endure the severe 
cold of below-zero temperatures, sleeping in tents, 
facing blizzards, riding for days over the snow-cov- 
ered plains. 

Back in his cadet days Pershing's classmates used 
to say of him that he was '' dependable," and this was 
the opinion of his superior officers during these years 
in the West. Whether his work was rescuing trav- 
elers from the Indians, capturing bandits, or looking 
out for the comfort of his men, it was always well 
done. 

He was thirty-two, however, before he became a 
first lieutenant, and, shortly after, he received the 
appointment of military instructor at the University of 
Nebraska. 

At this time military drill was not very popular at 
the university. Everybody who could got out of it 
and those who could not spent very little time 
polishing shoes and rifles and brushing uniforms. 
They slouched about with rounded shoulders and 
hands in their pockets in a way that was not exactly 
military. They did not know their new instructor's 
record as a drill-master at West Point, but they were 
not long in finding it out. They scrubbed and 
brushed and polished for their credits after Pershing 
came, and in two or three months there was such a 
change that one could not always be sure whether the 



GENERAL PERSHING 263 

soldierly figure crossing the campus was that of Lieu- 
tenant Pershing or one of the cadets, who now dressed 
like him and walked like him. 

Another thing these Mid-Western boys were never 
to forget was the way Pershing taught. " Once at an 
annual encampment," says Col. William Hayward," 
who was one of Pershing's cadets, '' the company was 
lined up along a country road, firing on a masked 
battery in an orchard. In those days the firing was 
by volleys and commands. 

" Pershing gave the command, ' Load, ready, aim !' ; 
then, walking along the line of Cadets, he touched my 
foot and whispered, ' Fire ! ' I fired. Then every- 
body fired. Pershing ran back and forth inquiring of 
each of the cadets : 

'' ' Did you hear the command. Fire? ' 

"^ No, sir!' 

" ' Then Vv-hy did you fire? ' 

*' ' I heard some one else fire.' 

" ' Do you ahvays do what you hear other people 
do?'" 

These cadets were very proud of having served 
under Pershing, and when it became known that he 
was to leave the university, they called a meeting to 
devise some badge that would distinguish them from 
other students. " The majority favored a gold 
medal," continues Col. Hayward, " but one boy stood 
out for a pair of Pershing's breeches." When he ex- 
plained the idea he had in mind, all voted for the 

1 Kansas City Star, July 9, 1916. 



264 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

breeches and he was appointed to interview Lieuten- 
ant Pershing. 

" What in the world do you want of a pair of my 
breeches?" Pershing asked. 

The cadet explained that they were to be cut up 
into stripes, showing the yellow cavalry stripes with 
the blue of the uniform, and made into service 
ribbons. 

" I'll give you the very best pair I own," said 
Pershing. 

At the university Pershing found the opportunity 
he had always wanted to study law. Though he had 
by this time given up the idea of practicing, he thought 
that a knowledge of law would be helpful to an army 
officer. He completed the full course, receiving the 
degree of Bachelor of Laws. 

From the University of Nebraska he went to West 
Point as instructor in tactics, where he remained until 
the Spanish War in 1898, when he at once asked for 
active service. As an officer of the Tenth Cavalry, a 
colored regiment, he was among the first 15,000 who 
sailed for Cuba on the 14th of June. Two weeks 
later he was fighting in the battle of San Juan Hill. 
He has himself described the charge which resulted 
in the taking of Santiago. 

" On June 30th," he writes, " with myself as guide, 
the second squadron of the Tenth forced its way 
through wire fences and almost impenetrable thicket 
to its position. . . . Through streams, tall grass, 
tropical undergrowth, under barbed wire fences and 



GENERAL PERSHING 265 

over wire entanglements, regardless of casualties, up 
the hill to the right, this gallant advance was made. 
As we appeared on the brow of the hill, we found the 
Spaniards retreating, only to take up a new position 
farther on, firing as they retired and stubbornly yield- 
ing ground, inch by inch. 

'' Our troops halted and lay down for a moment 
to get their breath. In the face of continued volleys, 
they soon formed an attack on the blockhouses and 
entrenchments of the second line. . . . The fire from 
the Spanish position had doubled in intensity; the 
cracking of their rifles was a continuous roar. There 
was a moment's lull and our line moved forward to 
charge across the valley separating the two hills. 
Once begun, it continued, dauntless and unchecked in 
its steady, dogged, and persistent advance until it 
dashed triumphant over the crest of the hill and, fir- 
ing a parting volley at the vanishing foe, planted the 
silken standard on the enemy's breastworks and the 
Stars and Stripes over the blockhouses of San Juan 
Hill." 

It was the first time that Pershing had taken part in 
a battle, and he won his captaincy. Afterwards Gen- 
eral Baldwin said of him : '' I have been in many fights 
in the Civil War, but Captain Pershing is the coolest 
man under fire I ever saw in my life." 

Another officer, Captain Charles S. Ayres, who 
commanded Troop E of the Tenth Cavalry, also 
speaks of Pershing in the battle of San Juan. "As 
we approached San Juan Creek, Troop E was in the 



266 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

lead of the Tenth Cavalry. When we got to the 
creek the order was brought by the gallant Pershing, 
who was as cool as a bowl of cracked ice, for the 
troops to take cover along the creek and await further 
orders. Into the creek we went after the courteous 
Pershing, who was showing us where to go." 

In 1899 Captain Pershing, at his own request, was 
sent to the Philippine Islands, which the United States 
had purchased upon the conclusion of the war. His 
work was to be the subjugation of the islands' savage 
tribes, the largest of which was the Moros, a people 
whom the Spaniards had never succeeded in conquer- 
ing. They were a farming and sea-faring people 
who lived for the most part in the island of Mindanao, 
the southernmost island of the Philippine group. No 
one knew exactly how many they were, their numbers 
having been estimated anywhere from thirty to one 
hundred thousand. 

Soon after the Americans came, the Moros began 
to raid the army camps, stealing horses and not infre- 
quently killing a sentry. Pershing tried to stop the 
raids by talking to the Moro leaders, but he was 
unsuccessful. Then he warned them that, if their 
attacks continued, he w^ould destroy their villages. 

One of the most troublesome of these tribes lived 
on the shores of Lake Lanao, in a country where 
high hills, covered with tropical jungle, protected 
them from attack. Here each farm was a- little for- 
tress in itself. The leader of the tribe, called the 
datto, in his stronghold of earth and bamboo, with its 



GENERAL PERSHING 267 

walls twenty feet thick and its deep wide moat, was 
much amused at the idea of the Americans taking his 
villages. 

Two days after Pershing came, however, the datto's 
stronghold no longer existed and a hundred Moros 
had fallen in battle. Then the tribesmen of the en- 
tire lake region came out of the hills and surrendered. 
They welcomed Pershing and promised loyalty to the 
new government. Wishing to impress them with the 
fact that the American army was strong enough to 
see that they kept their word, Pershing and his men 
made a triumphal march all the way around the lake. 
The natives were greatly awed, for it was the first 
time in three hundred years that white men had encir- 
cled Lake Lanao. 

Pershing's first term of service in the Philippines 
came to an end in 1903, when he was recalled to the 
United States to become a member of the General Staff 
Corps. In 1905, when the Russian-Japanese War 
broke out, he was appointed military observer with the 
Japanese army. The study he made of the tactics 
and organization of the Japanese army was to prove 
of great value later on, when it fell to him to organize 
and command the American armies in France. 

He was forty-five years old now and still a captain. 
Advancement in the army was slow, too slow, Presi- 
dent Roosevelt thought, for an officer who had done 
all that Captain Pershing had. In 1906, therefore, 
Roosevelt appointed him a brigadier-general. 

At the end of the Russian- Japanese War Pershing 



268 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

returned to the Philippines. Many campaigns had 
still to be made before the Moros were finally sub- 
dued, the last occurring as late as 1913. That same 
year he was appointed military governor of the Island 
of Mindanao, and soon afterwards the Moros made 
him a datto, or ruler, of one of their own tribes. It 
was an unheard-of thing for a foreigner to become a 
datto, for the datto was not only a judge among his 
people, but held the power of life and death over 
them. 

Pershing had won their loyalty by treating them 
fairly, and this was not always easy to do, for it 
depended on his understanding of Moro customs. 
First he learned the Moro language, then he studied 
the Koran. The Moros are Mohammedans in reli- 
gion and the Koran is their Bible. He did not try to 
impose white men's ideas of civilization and govern- 
ment on them, but allowed them to keep their own, and 
after a time they discovered that they could get fairer 
judgments from him than from one of their own 
tribe. To a green tent among the palms, over which 
waved an American flag, the Moros came for miles 
around, old men, young warriors, mothers with babies, 
to hear Pershing read their own law to them and settle 
their differences. 

In 1914 Pershing was recalled from the Philip- 
pines and, a few months later, he was ordered to the 
Mexican border. While he was hunting for a house 
for his family in El Paso, word came to him of the 
tragedy that had occurred in San Francisco, where 



GENERAL PERSHING 269 

his wife and three Httle daughters had lost their lives 
in a fire. Of all his family, only his son, then a boy 
of six, had escaped. Those who were with General 
Pershing in the months that followed noticed that the 
lines in his face grew deeper and his hair turned more 
gray, but he never spoke of his grief. He went 
quietly on with his work, which was to patrol the 
border and to build an efficient army organization. 

One day in the spring of 1916, a party of Mexican 
soldiers raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, 
killing several Americans. They were soldiers of a 
Mexican rebel leader named Pancho Villa, who was 
fighting the regular Mexican army. The result of 
the Columbus raid was an order to General Pershing 
to take his army into Mexico and capture Villa. Al- 
though permission to do this had been obtained from 
the Mexican government, it was clear that the gov- 
ernment did not want the American army in Mexico, 
even for the purpose of fighting its chief enemy. 
General Pershing's position, therefore, was very dif- 
ficult. In the end, the soldiers of Villa deserted him 
when they discovered the presence of the American 
army. Villa himself fled to the mountains, and the 
American forces were finally withdrawn in January, 
1917. 

Three months later, on the 6th of April, 1917, the 
United States declared w^ar against Germany, and 
immediately there followed the announcement that 
General Pershing had been chosen to command our 
armies in France. 



270 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

As with France and Britain, so now with America, 
the war was not to be fought with the army and the 
navy alone but with all the industries, wealth, and 
brains of the nation. A great business organization 
had to be planned. While this work went on, people 
forgot that the day would come when an American 
army would sail for France, but one morning in June 
word came that General Pershing and his staff had 
landed in England, and suddenly the war seemed 
very near. 

His arrival was to mark a new understanding be- 
tween the two great English-speaking nations. The 
British people felt this and welcomed General Per- 
shing as one of their own. The highest state and mili- 
tary honors were paid to him, while cheering crowds 
greeted him wherever he appeared. The enthusiasm 
reached its height when the people read in Pershing's 
message to the British public: '' We hope in time to be 
playing our part — and we hope it will be a big part — 
on the Western front." Four days were filled with 
receptions, with army conferences, with visits to the 
British training camps; then Pershing left England 
for France, arriving at Boulogne on June 13th. 

Mr. Floyd Gibbons, an American correspondent, 
w^ho crossed the English Channel with General Per- 
shing, tells of his arrival in France :^ 

" It happened that I looked back amidships and saw 
a solitary figure standing on the bridge of the vessel. 
It was General Pershing. He seemed rapt in deep 

^ And They Thought We IVouldn't Fight, by Floyd Gibbons. 



GENERAL PERSHING 271 

thought. He wore his cap straight on his head, the 
visor shading his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his 
hands behind him, his feet planted slightly apart to 
accommodate the gentle roll of the ship. 

"He faced due east and his eyes were directed 
toward the shores of that foreign land which we were 
approaching. . . . 

" As we drew close to shore, I noticed an enormous 
concrete breakwater extending out from the harbor 
entrance. It was surmounted by a wooden railing 
and on the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a 
small French boy. His legs were bare and his feet 
were encased in heavy wooden shoes. On his head 
he w^ore a red stocking cap of the liberty type. As 
we cam.e within hailing distance, he gave to us the 
first greeting that came from the shores of France 
to these first arriving American soldiers. 

'' ' Vive r Amerique,' he shouted, cupping his hands 
to his mouth and sending his shrill voice across the 
water to us. Pershing, on the bridge, heard the salu- 
tation. He smiled, touched his hand to his hat, and 
waved to the lad on the railing." 

Paris had prepared a holiday to celebrate General 
Pershing's arrival. For two or three days the capital 
city was to forget the war while it expressed its joy 
over the coming of the Americans. Since early morn- 
ing dense throngs had waited outside the station. 
They filled the sidewalks, the streets, and the house- 
tops. They crowded the windows and the balconies 
along the route that Pershing was to pass. The 



272 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Stars and Stripes and the tri-color were everywhere 
entwined. 

When the official greeting was over and General 
Pershing stepped from the station into view of the 
people, a great shout went up. " Vive I'Amerique ! " 
and '' V^ive Pershing! " was the greeting of all Paris. 
It ran like an echo along the entire route of the pro- 
cession, while from the windows and balconies came 
showers of confetti and flowers. 

The destination of the Americans was Hotel Cril- 
lon in the Place de la Concorde. When General 
Pershing had disappeared within, the crowd imme- 
diately demanded his reappearance on the balcony. 

He came out and looked down, says Mr. Gibbon, 
*' upon the sea of faces turned up to him, and then 
it seemed that nature desired to play a part in the 
ceremony of that great day. A soft breeze from the 
Champs Elysees touched the cluster of flags on the 
general's right and from all the Allied emblems fast- 
ened there it selected one flag. 

" The breeze tenderly caught the folds of the flag 
and wafted them across the balcony on which the 
general bowed. He saw and recognized that flag. 
He extended his hand, caught the flag in his fingers 
and pressed it to his lips. All France and all Amer- 
ica represented in that vast throng that day cheered 
to the mighty echo when Pershing kissed the tri-color 
of France." 

While France was expressing her gratitude to 
America for the help that was still to come. General 



GENERAL PERSHING 273 

Pershing did not forget the debt of free America to 
France. With a few members of his staff and sev- 
eral French officers, he went one day to an old ceme- 
tery in the suburbs of Paris, where Lafayette lies 
buried. There he was greeted by the Marquis de 
Chambrun, a descendant of Lafayette, who spoke 
again of the principle of liberty that had ever united 
the two nations. 

When the Marquis had finished speaking, Pershing 
took from one of his officers a large wreath of pink 
and white roses and placed it on the marble slab which 
bore the name of Lafayette. Then, stepping back, he 
removed his cap and stood a moment looking down 
upon the tomb. Finally he spoke four words, '' La- 
fayette, we are here." 

The arrival of the first battalions of the American 
army was a sequel to the arrival of General Pershing. 
Paris saw them first on the Fourth of July, when they 
passed in review before President Poincare, General 
Joffre, and General Pershing. When the short cere- 
mony was over, thousands of French soldiers, women, 
and children left the crowds and, surging among our 
troops as they marched through the streets, decorated 
their hats and guns with roses and scattered flowers 
in their way. 

Fighting was the work to be done, after all, and 
soon the new army was established in training camps. 
At Gondrecourt, in the foothills of the Vosges moun- 
tains, the First Division went into camp. It received 
its instruction directly from French troops and in 



274 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

French. The instructors were men of the Alpins 
Chasseurs, or Blue Devils, whom Americans on this 
side were afterwards to know. 

All summer the training went on. Soon after day- 
break each morning the American soldiers left their 
billets and marched with their French instructors to 
the training grounds, where, through long, tedious 
hours, they learned to dig, to drill, to throw grenades, 
and to shoot. Late in the afternoon they marched 
back to the village, and after supper, in their free 
evening hours, the men would gather about the door- 
ways to talk with the people and to learn French. 
There was also the business of teaching the French 
children to play ball. This became a regular occu- 
pation, like drilling or trench digging. It had to be 
done every day. 

From the moment of its arrival the French chil- 
dren adopted the American army, and after a time 
the army reversed this proceeding by adopting the 
French children. They took them individually and 
by companies and regiments, each man contributing 
so much a month for the support of some child whose 
father had been killed in the war. 

If there was one thing more than another that made 
friends for the army among the French people, it was 
their willingness to help. Their work was anything 
waiting to be done ; they harvested the fields, cleaned 
up the villages, or gave organ recitals in the churches, 
as the need might be. 

Americans who visit Paris in the future will not 



GENERAL PERSHING 275 

unlikely go out of their way to find a house numbered 
31 on the rue Constantine, not far from the tomb of 
Napoleon. " There," they will say, " were the Amer- 
ican headquarters. In that house the organization 
for our army in France was planned. In the corner 
room upstairs was General Pershing's office." 

When America first entered the war, a French 
General had said, " We should be satisfied if we might 
have two or three hundred thousand Americans." 
General Pershing, however, knew that great armies 
would be needed and he planned, not for hundreds of 
thousands but for millions. A member of General 
Pershing's staff says that the work of '' supplying the 
army, let alone preparing it for battle, was an enter- 
prise surpassing that of the Panama canal in magni- 
tude and difficulty." 

The army needed everything and everything had 
to be brought across the ocean in ships. But first new 
harbors had to be made, new docks and warehouses 
constructed, and hundreds of miles of new railroads 
laid, all with American materials and American labor. 
It was a regiment of American lumber-jacks, re- 
cruited in the Far West, that turned the forests of 
France into lumber for the army's needs. 

Each section of the army had its special work to 
do. One section looked after supplies, including 
food, clothing, medicine, motors, and guns; another 
looked after the training of the men ; a third had to do 
with ships, a fourth with mail, a fifth with prisoners 
and spies, and so on through all the details that 



276 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

together made up the organization which was pre- 
paring to fight. 

And all of the organization rested finally on the 
shoulders of one man. General Pershing was every- 
where. One could not tell from one day to the next 
where he might be found. He inspected all the train- 
ing camps and villages where American troops were 
quartered, climbing into the lofts to see where the men 
slept, assisting the cooks in the kitchens with their 
menus. The stevedores at the ports and the truck 
drivers along the roads knew him. The Red Cross, 
the Y. M. C. A., and the various organizations con- 
nected with the army received a visit from him at one 
time or another. 

And while he attended to these many things he kept 
in touch with the fighting on all fronts. Now he was 
with the British, now with the French, in their front 
line trenches, their training camps, at headquarters. 
His coffee-colored car, the only car with four stars 
on the wind shield, was known throughout France, 
fit came and went like a whirlwind. After a visit 
from General Pershing, a training camp was always 
aware that something had happened to it. The drills 
had a little more snap to them. The discipline was 
more strict. Every man wanted to make good. 

As a part of their training, General Pershing be- 
lieved that his soldiers should have some experience 
in the front line trenches. In October of 1917, there- 
fore, three American battalions took over a small sec- 
tion of the French lines near St. Mihiel, on the Lor- 



GENERAL PERSHING 277 

raine border. Although there was no heavy fighting 
on the St. Mihiel front that winter, there were many 
raids on both sides which resulted in our first losses. 
Here the first men were wounded, the first prisoners 
taken, and in the little village of Bathlemont are bur- 
ied the first American dead. Month by month our 
army was growing and becoming more efficient. In 
the spring of 1918 one American division was fighting 
with the French in Champagne and our line in Lor- 
raine hnd been extended. Notwithstanding, the 
French High Command still thought the Americans 
insufficiently trained to engage in the heavy fighting 
of a great battle. 

Then came the twenty-first of March and the Ger- 
man drives toward Paris. When the news went out, 
every American officer understood that the time for 
action had come. On the 28th General Pershing 
sought out General Foch, who had that same day 
been made the supreme commander, to offer him the 
American army. 

He found General Foch in his garden at headquar- 
ters in the city of Doullen. Arm in arm, the two 
generals walked up and down the garden, discussing 
the situation. Finally, speaking in French, General 
Pershing said, " I have com.e to say to you that the 
American people would hold it a great honor to have 
our troops engaged in the present battle. I ask it in 
the name of the American people and in my own. 

" There is at this moment no other question than 
that of fighting. Infantry, artillery, aviation, all that 



278 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




General Pershing 



GENERAL PERSHING 279 

we have, is at your disposal. Alore are coming, as 
many as will be required. I have come to say to you 
that the American people will be proud to be engaged 
in the greatest battle in history." 

General Pershing's offer of the American army 
stirred the hearts of the French people as nothing had 
since the entrance of America into the war, for they 
had not understood why it had taken so long to train 
our troops. They knew only that the Americans had 
been in France for nearly a year without having done 
much fighting, while each month the toll of French 
lives rose higher and higher. Now the people living 
along the Toul-Paris route saw trainload after train- 
load of khaki-uniformed soldiers pass through their 
cities and villages. " The Americans are going in," 
they cried, and the news spread. In the suburbs of 
Paris children flocked to the trains, shouting and 
throwing their hats and wooden shoes into the air, 
while from the car windows descended a shower of 
pennies, dimes, and quarters that turned the greeting 
into a wild scramble for coins. 

The men had received with cheers the news that they 
were to go into battle. Each division hoped that it 
would be chosen. The honor fell to the First, a divi- 
sion of the regular army. At Chaumont-en-Vexin, 
in Picardy, the men of the First detrained and went 
into camp for ten days, while they practiced maneu- 
vers and made their final preparations. After an in- 
spection by General Pershing and several French 
officers, they were pronounced ready for the front. 



28o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Now they left the main roads and kept to the by- 
ways, winding among wheat fields and green hills. 
They joked and sang as they marched and the French 
people who saw them pass thought that the Americans 
could not possibly understand what a battle meant. 
A three days' march brought them to the battle area. 

The first line consisted chiefiy of holes scattered 
here and there, from which riflemen, constantly ex- 
posed to shell and machine gun fire, w^atched for any 
sign of a German attack. Behind them were the 
artillerymen, who also lived in the ground in hastily 
constructed dugouts near their guns. Taking over 
the line could be done only under cover of darkness. 
One night, therefore, two of our guns moved out and 
took the place of two French guns, and our infantry 
platoons crawled into the rifle pits to relieve the tired 
poilus who had been fighting for weeks. On the third 
morning there were no French left in that sector ; our 
army had taken its place in the line of the great battle. 

That line ran north and south near the city of 
Montdidier. Across No Man's Land, situated on a 
hill, was a tpwn which the Germans held. From the 
heights of this town they looked down upon our posi- 
tions and shelled them unmercifully. Our men, 
crouching unprotected in shell-holes and rifle pits, 
desired more than anything else to climb out of their 
holes, go over, take that town, and put a stop to the 
German shells. Eventually this was what they did, 
for the name of the town was Cantigny. It was the 
taking of Cantigny, the first American attack upon 



GENERAL PERSHING 281 

the German lines, that set at rest all doubts of how 
the army would fight. 

But something was happening on another part of 
the line that quite overshadowed the capture of a 
single village. On May 27th, 1918, the Germans 
began their third great drive. They struck just south 
of the city of Laon, and in five days they had advanced 
to the river Marne, driving a wedge into the French 
lines nearly thirty miles deep. At Chateau Thierry, 
the southernmost point of their drive, they were less 
than forty miles from the Paris forts. 

For a second time since the beginning of the war 
Paris was menaced and thousands of people fled from 
the city. Our own offices of the Red Cross and the 
Y. M. C. A. prepared to move. The French army, 
weary with fighting and falling back, was unable to 
hold the line, and a call for help was sent to the 
Americans. 

All of our trained divisions were already in the 
fighting line, with the exception of the Third, a new 
division which was about to go into the trenches of 
a quiet sector. Almost at the moment the men pre- 
pared to start the order was changed, and the new 
order sent a thrill into the camp. The Third was to 
stop the Germans on the Marne. 

It would take several days, however, to move 
27,000 men from eastern to central France. Mean- 
while there was one unit of the Third that did not 
have to wait. This was the 7th Motorized Machine 
Gun Battalion. The men had only to jump into their 



282 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

cars to be off. They were but one battalion, it was 
true ; still they had guns and guns could stop Germans. 

It was four o'clock on the afternoon of May 31st 
when the first lorries of the Motorized Machine Gun 
Battalion dashed into that part of Chateau Thierry 
which lies on the southern bank of the Marne. The 
machine guns were speedily set up in the houses and 
gardens bordering on the river, and the American 
gunners, looking across the city to its extreme north- 
ern edge, caught their first glimpse of the enemy. The 
Germans had just entered the town. 

Though quantities of shells soon began to fall in 
the southern part of the city, not a shot was fired 
from the American side; our men only waited beside 
their guns. That night an American lieutenant, with 
twelve men, crossed the river and placed two machine 
guns in a street leading to one of the bridges. With 
the first light of morning the Germans made a rush 
for the bridge; then they discovered the Americans. 
From both sides of the river came the fire, driving 
them back to shelter or melting their ranks. 

All that day these thirteen Americans held on the 
north bank, while the gunners on the south bank kept 
up an unremitting fire. It was the first of June. 
Since the morning of the 27th of May the Germans 
had pushed steadily forward. Victory had followed vic- 
tory. They had crossed the river Aisne and the river 
Vesle. They had now but to cross the Marne and 
the way to Paris was open. It was inconceivable that 
a few American machine gunners could stop a vic- 
torious army. 



GENERAL PERSHING 283 

But on that day they made no progress. Every 
effort to cross the river failed. The next day they 
tried again. They advanced shoulder to shoulder in 
the usual German manner, and singing. As before, 
the American fire met them. A few men reached the 
middle of the bridge, but no one got across. Most 
fell in the streets near the river. Whichever way one 
looked, the pavements were carpeted with dead. 

While the machine gunners held the bridge at 
Chateau Thierry, other units of the Third Division 
and some of the Second were thrusting the Germans 
back at various points along the Marne. At no point 
were they able to establish a foothold on the southern 
bank. Finally the bridges were blown up. The 
Crown Prince had no choice but to end the drive; the 
road to Paris was blocked by green American troops, 
fighting their first battle. 

Sterner work awaited our men. The Second Divi- 
sion, which had taken over the line northwest of 
Chateau Thierry, taken and held it against terrific 
assaults of the enemy, was now to retake from the 
Germans some of the territory so recently gained. 
Belleau Wood, Torcy, Bouresches, Vaux, — each is 
the name of an American victory. In Belleau Wood, 
where the 5th and 6th regiments of marines wrote 
their names in history, three fifths of the men and 
officers fell, but the remaining two fifths " got there." 
That forest is no longer called Bois de Belleau but 
the Wood of the American Marine Brigade. 

For some time General Pershing had been talking 



284 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

of an offensive in which the Americans should have 
an equal part with the French and the British, but 
General Foch thought that our men had not yet had 
sufficient battle experience. It was the victories of 
June that gave him confidence in the American army. 
Whatever our men might lack in training was made 
up for by their courage and the spirit with which they 
fought. Untried in battle, though many of them 
were, they did not retreat; they went forward, and 
General Foch agreed that an offensive might now be 
undertaken. 

Of all the units at his command. General Foch chose 
for his offensive two American divisions and one 
French. The American divisions were the First and 
the Second, our trained regular troops. The French 
division was one of Moroccans which included the fa- 
mous Foreign Legion. It was a compliment to our 
men to be chosen with the Foreign Legion, which 
was considered unequaled in attack and which had 
taken part in every offensive of the war. 

In the forests of Villers-Cotterets, just south of 
the city of Soissons, General Foch gathered his army. 
This was on the western side of the triangle which 
the Germans had won in their third drive. On the 
eastern side the fifth German drive was about to take 
place. This was the Emperor's Battle, or the Battle 
of Peace, that was to end the war. From Chateau 
Thierry to the east of the city of Rheims the German 
artillery opened fire on the morning of July ISth and 
German storm troops once more attempted to cross 



GENERAL PERSHING 285 

the Marne. On the south bank, the Americans and 
the French together held for three days, a rigid 
human wall against which the German waves struck 
and broke, and fell back again across the river. 

During these three days the Germans ceaselessly 
watched the Villers-Cotterets forests. Their air- 
planes flew over the trees, looking for any signs that 
might reveal an approaching battle. They discovered 
nothing. The photographs which they brought back 
gave no evidence that any change had taken place. 

Yet here General Foch's offensive was about to 
beein. His armv remained undiscovered because it 
did not enter the forests until the night previous to 
the attack. It was 4.30 in the afternoon of July 17th 
when the army commanders received their orders. 
The attack was set for 5.35 the next morning. Be- 
tween dusk and the coming of daylight all must be 
ready; everything needed for a great battle must be 
got into line. 

The night, fortunately, was dark, and soon rain 
began to fall. Thunder cracked among the trees and 
lightning flashed, revealing men, men everywhere. 

On each of the few roads in the forests a double 
line of traffic moved forward, limbers, gun carriages, 
transports, ammunition carts, and tractors hauling 
the big guns. Guides were stationed at intervals 
along the route to give directions and, if possible, to 
prevent collisions. 

The men groped their way along muddy paths or 
stumbled through the forests, colliding with carts, 



286 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

mules, and trees, and with each other. It was all but 
impossible for officers to keep their units together. 
Notwithstanding these difficulties, there was little con- 
fusion. The lines moved forward silently and in good 
order. There was no, talking. Commands were 
spoken in whispers. 

The men carried the usual battle equipment. All 
wore, strapped across their backs, packs containing a 
blanket, a pick, a shovel, extra shoes, and extra am- 
munition. From their shoulders hung gas masks, 
haversacks with water and rations for two days, and 
first aid packets. Bayonets swung from their am- 
munition belts, and some wore pocketed aprons filled 
with hand grenades. Each carried a rifie or machine 
gun parts. 

Beside them, a little farther from the road, the 
engineers w^ere struggling through the underbrush 
with steel picks, shovels, axes, saws, and rolls of 
barbed wire. Farther on marched the Foreign Legion 
and beyond, threading their way among the trees, 
rode the French cavalry, with lances tilted across their 
shoulders. 

Here and there the procession was blocked by the 
slow-moving tanks, cautiously feeling their way over 
the uneven ground. Ahead of each tank walked a 
man, wearing upon his back a white towel, which 
served as a guide through the darkness and the wil- 
derness of trees. 

Hour after hour throughout the night this move- 
ment continued. As dawn approached, anxiety seized 



GENERAL PERSHING 287 

the French commanders lest all the miits had not ar- 
rived. The American Second Division was to lead in 
the attack. Like the "lost division" in the battle of 
the Marne, it could not be found. Runners were sent 
back. They brought word that the Second was 
thought to be too far in the rear to arrive in time. 

At 4.35, exactly one hour before the infantry was 
to advance, the guns opened fire, and there followed 
such destruction as every bombardment makes; only 
this time it was the work of our guns. We were 
'' striking back." 

A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour. The 
Second Division had not appeared. The attack would 
have to be made without it, leaving a gap in the line. 
Of what might happen in consequence of that gap it 
was useless to think. The risk had to be taken. 

The hour of 5.35 was fast approaching when word 
came that the Second was hurrying forward. It had 
been unavoidably delayed, but it meant to get there. 
Though heavily burdened with their equipment the 
men were running. The suspense increased as, min- 
ute by minute, the time grew shorter. Success or fail- 
ure — all thoughts turned to the men hurrying through 
the forest. 

Five thirty-five! The order was given. Behind 
the barrage the tanks moved out. Following the 
tanks went the infantry. Tired, hot, and breathless, 
the men of the Second staggered into line. Now, 
however, they need not run. Slowly, unwaveringly, 
the lines went forward. 



288 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The Germans had been taken completely by sur- 
prise. They flocked from trenches and dugouts with 
hands held over their heads and the usual cry of 
*'Kamerad." Streams of prisoners began to move 
toward the rear. Through forests, ravines, and into 
villages our men swept on. Always before, machine 
guns, cleverly hidden, had checked a rapid advance, 
but now the tanks were looking after the machine 
guns. In an hour the men had reached their first ob- 
jective. "Through to the guns!" was the cry. It 
had been a German war cry before the Americans 
made it theirs. 

All day and all night they fought without stopping 
for food or water, and on the second day, looking 
ahead, they caught glimpses of the city of Soissons. 
The men were utterly weary. Some had not slept for 
three days. The fighting, too, was growing more 
difficult ; the infantry had outdistanced the tanks and 
the enemy machine guns had to be taken in the old 
hand-to-hand way. 

For five hard days they kept on ; every division was 
needed, and there was none to take their places in the 
line. When, finally, relief came, they marched back 
to their billets, so tired that the road swam before their 
eyes but knowing that a splendid victory was theirs. 
Seven thousand prisoners, over one hundred guns, and 
an advance of seven miles — it was the largest gain the 
Allies had counted in a year. It was the victory 
which turned the tide of the war. 

After July 18th, the Germans steadily retreated as 



GENERAL PERSHING 289 

the Allies pressed forward. The Americans, contin- 
uing the advance they had made, fought their way 
northward across the river Ourcq and on to the river 
Vesle. One town was taken nine times in twenty- four 
hours, so desperate w^as the fighting that marked this 
whole advance. 

On the 10th of August, the First American Field 
Army was formed, under the command of General 
Pershing. Although the number of our men on the 
fighting line was a million and a half, other American 
divisions continued to fight with the French and the 
British until the Second and the Third Field Armies 
were formed. 

The month of September brought us a still greater 
task. In eastern France, near the city of St. Mihiel, 
the Germans had made a large dent in the French lines 
in the beginning of the war, a dent which had re- 
mained for four years because to straighten it had 
been considered an impossible undertaking. It was 
this enterprise, however, which now fell to the First 
American Army. Though the French had planned it, 
our army was to carry it out. If it failed, the respon- 
sibility would be ours. 

What it meant to straighten the St. Mihiel line can 
be told briefly by the figures of our army reports. In 
preparation, 100,000 maps of the territory were made 
and given out to officers and men. Forty thousand 
photographs pictured the region under every possible 
weather condition. Five thousand miles of telephone 
wire were strvmg and to this the signal corps at- 



290 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

tached 6,000 telephones after the attack started. One 
milHon shells were fired in the first four hours of the 
battle, which is the heaviest artillery bombardment 
ever recorded in history. Five hundred fifty thou- 
sand men were engaged. 

The attack began on the morning of September 
12th, and in twenty-four hours the First Army had 
taken 152 square miles of territory, more than 15,000 
prisoners, and had liberated the people of 72 villages. 
One who came to express his gratitude to General 
Pershing was President Poincare of France, whose 
ow^n home near St. Mihiel had been occupied by the 
Germans for four years. 

On September 26th, just thirteen days after St. 
Mihiel, came the battle of the Argonne Forest, the 
greatest battle America has ever fought. It was our 
battle of the Somme, against positions which the Ger- 
mans had been fortifying not two years but four. 
Compare the thirteen days in which General Pershing 
prepared for the battle of the Argonne with General 
Haig's year of preparation before the battle of the 
Somme. Great changes had taken place in the man- 
ner of fighting. To take the enemy unaware with a 
sudden, bold attack was the new way, and there could 
be no surprise if there was much preparation. But 
the difiiculties for the commander-in-chief and for the 
army wxre enormously increased. 

Ever since the First Division had arrived in France, 
it had been known that the Americans were to attack 
in the Argonne Forest. The battle, however, had 



GENERAL PERSHING 291 

been planned for the spring of 1919. It was now 
September of 1918. Winter was coming on. The 
chances of failure were many, yet so rapid had been 
the progress of the Allies that the situation demanded 
an attack on this front. 

The line ran from the Argonne Forest to the Meuse 
river. All previous efforts to thrust the Germans 
from their positions had failed. They were consid- 
ered so secure that they had been turned into a rest 
area, where soldiers exhausted from the fighting on 
other fronts came to recover. The Germans did not 
believe that they could be taken, but, more than that, 
so long as the German army remained in France, they 
must not be taken. There was no front more impor- 
tant than that from the Argonne to the Meuse. 

To carry on the war Germany needed coal from 
northern France and iron from Lorraine, but the chief 
reason for the importance of the Argonne front was 
a four-track railway line that ran from Lille to Lux- 
emburg, wnth branches connecting with Metz and 
Verdun. To cut this line was to cut the chief artery 
of supplies for the German army. 

Three main lines or series of entrenchments 
guarded this railway. They were much like those the 
British took in the battle of the Somme, except that 
in place of timbers the Argonne trenches were con- 
structed of masonry and concrete. Communicating 
trenches, w^hich ran from the front lines to officers' 
quarters and supply chambers were roofed with iron, 
camouflaged, and covered over wath steel. 



292 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The first of the series of entrenchments lay but 
a few hundred yards from the American positions. 
It was know^n as the Hindenburg Line. Roads cross- 
ing this line were blocked with stone walls and honey- 
combed wdth traps to prevent the tanks from reaching 
the German machine guns. A trap was a hole in the 
road, usually a shell hole, covered with weak timbers 
and a few inches of earth, which gave it the appear- 
ance of being solid. In crossing it, a tank simply dis- 
appeared into the earth and had to be pulled out by 
trucks at the cost of much time and trouble. 

Behind the Hindenburg Line were others, the 
strongest of which was the Kriemhilde Line. It was 
the last strongly fortified position before the Belgian 
frontier. The fall of the Kriemhilde Line meant the 
withdrawal of the German army from France. 

Such was the situation when the American army 
went into position on the 24th of September. Not 
only were the defenses opposing them as formidable 
as any known to military history, but they were 
guarded by the most highly trained troops. 

Our army greatly outnumbered the German army. 
It was an army of civilians, men who had learned 
the business of war within a few short months. Of 
all the divisions that were to make the attack but one 
was a regular division. The battle lasted forty-seven 
days and before the end '' there was not a township in 
the United States that did not have a son in it." ^ In 
all, there were 650,000 Americans engaged. 

'^America's Greatest Battle, Major Frederick Palmer, Collier's, 
March 22, 1919. 



GENERAL PERSHING 293 

Preparations were made in haste and with the ut- 
most secrecy. At night roads leading to the front 
were crowded with traffic of every kind; by day not 
a sign of activity appeared anywhere. 

In the town of Souilly, where General Petain had 
lived during the Verdun battle, General Pershing es- 
tablished his headquarters. His office was the same 
one that General Petain had occupied, a bare upstairs 
room in the Town Hall. Into the courtyard cars came 
and went as busily as in 1916, but they were American 
cars and they were busy with a battle even greater 
than Verdun. 

Five-thirty in the morning of September 26th was 
the hour set for the attack. Three hours before, the 
bombardment began, a violent thundering of four 
thousand guns on a front of some eighteen miles. 
Giant trees, bits of masonry, and pieces of steel, ris- 
ing high in the air, were illumined by the flash of 
bursting shells. Above, hundreds of airplanes cir- 
cled in the half-darkness, guarding our lines, and for 
the first six hours of the battle not a single enemy 
plane was able to get across. 

The country over which the army was to advance 
was a series of rolling hills, dotted with patches of 
woods. Upon the western edge was the Argonne, a 
dense forest twenty-five miles long, situated on a high 
ridge. 

A heavy mist hung over the valleys, a protecting 
screen for the infantry as the men went forward. 
Keeping to the hills, they endeavored to avoid the 



294 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

machine guns concealed in the thick underbrush of 
the ravines. At first there was but little resistance, 
for the Germans, seriously outnumbered, had with- 
drawn from their front lines, leaving only scattered 
machine gun nests to check the advance. By noon 
the Americans were through all of the entrenchments 
known as the Hindenburg Line, and when night came 
they counted a gain of seven miles. The days imme- 
diately following saw no such marked advance and, 
on the last day of September, the first phase of the 
battle came to an end. The Germans had retreated 
to the Kriemhilde Line; before these new positions 
the Americans dug themselves in. 

On the morning of October 4th the second phase of 
the battle began. The struggle for the Kriemhilde 
Line was to last until November 1st and was marked 
by most determined fighting. For the Germans to 
give up these positions meant that the end was near, 
and they threw into the battle all their remaining re- 
serves in a last desperate effort to save themselves 
from defeat. 

In the Argonne Forest, where the artillery only 
partly destroyed the defenses, our men had to cut their 
way through a formidable system of wire entangle- 
ments. Much of this work was done at night. 
Reaching a line of wire, which was nailed to the trees 
to a height of ten feet, the men would stack their guns 
or throw them over their shoulders, pull out their 
pliers, and cut an opening. The noise was apt to at- 
tract the enemy machine gunners and draw artillery 



GENERAL PERSHING 295 

fire. Many men fell into the trenches in attempting 
to leap them and sometimes were injured. Those who 
got across reached another line of wire ten feet far- 
ther on, beyond this another, and so on to a depth of 
two and a half miles. 

Gas was always present, particularly in the woods, 
where it lingered in the moist places and under the 
trees. Rain and cloudy days marked the battle 
throughout. The nights were cold, and the men had 
no shelter except underbrush or the '' fox-holes " 
where they dug themselves in. 

Compared with the French and the British armies, 
our army w^as still inexperienced in many ways and 
paid dearly for its gains. One division fought con- 
tinuously for eight days and nights and when it came 
out only half of the infantry remained. The men 
stumbled along the road, with tired white faces and 
sunken eyes. All were foot-sore. Some were sick, 
and others were wounded. Nevertheless, they were 
determined to break through. " To drive and keep driv- 
ing to the end," was the way the Americans fought 
best, and slowly the Germans' hold upon the Argonne 
was weakening. 

By the 28th of October the Americans had reached 
a position but thirteen miles from the Lille-Luxem- 
burg railway, and at this point the navy came into the 
fight. 

Earlier in the year, when the news reached America 
that the Germans were shelling Paris with huge, long- 
distance guns, Admiral Plunkett had wanted to take 



296 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

some of our big 16-inch navy guns to France. They 
were more powerful than any artillery the Allies had 
used, having a range of twenty-five miles. Everyone 
tried to discourage him but in the end he had his way. 
The guns were too large to go into the hold of a ship 
and he had them lashed to the decks. Arriving in 
France, he was told that the guns were too heavy to be 
carried over French railways. He said he would pay 
whatever damage resulted. Next it was found that 
the guns could not go through the tunnels. He fixed 
them so they could. Finally they reached the battle 
front and began shelling the all-important railway 
on October 28th. 

Then cam.e the last phase of the battle. When our 
guns opened fire on the morning of November 1st, 
only a feeble response came from the Germans. The 
infantry advanced, meeting little opposition, and on 
November 2d the Germans announced for the first 
time in four years that their line had been broken. 

On the night of November 4th the Americans threw 
pontoon bridges across the Meuse and, in the face 
of vigorous fire, established a foothold on the eastern 
bank. Two days later the forces on the western side 
had reached Sedan. The end was now near but the 
effort was not relaxed. The men pressed steadily, 
doggedly on. 

On November 11th everyone back of the lines knew 
that peace had come. The men at the front, however, 
did not ; on both sides the fighting continued through- 
out the morning. Just at eleven o'clock a great salvo 



GENERAL PERSHING 297 

was fired from all guns. Platoon leaders suddenly 
called out ''Cease firing!" and the Americans were 
amazed to see the Germans spring from their trenches 
with white flags. Then, realizing that the end of the 
war had come, the men broke into a tumult of cheers. 

REFERENCES 

Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam, beginning in 

World's Work, Nov., 1918. 
The Story of General Pershing, Everett T. Tomlinson. 
And They Thought We Wouldnt Fight, Floyd Gibbons. 
America in France, Major Frederick Palmer. 
The A. E. F., Hey wood Broun. 

Pershing, Our Leader in France, World's Work, June, 1917. 
General Pershing, United States Soldier, R. Thomas, World's 

Work, Nov., 1906. 
General Pershing, K^nsdiS City Star, July 9, 1916. 
Battle of St. Mihiel, Current History Magazine, Oct., 1918. 
Battle of the Argonne, Current History Magazine, Nov., Dec , 

1918. 
Americas Greatest Battle, Major Frederick Palmer, Collier's, 

Mar. 22, 29, April 5, 1919. 



XI. WOODROW WILSON 

One of the earliest memories President Wilson has 
is of an important event which happened in November 
of 1860. He was only four years old at the time, yet 
he remembers the incident clearly. He was swinging 
on the gate in front of his father's house when he saw 
two men approaching from opposite directions. They 
chanced to meet near the gate and one said to the 
other, ''Lincoln is elected and there'll be war." 

Five months later the war came. Though the Wil- 
son family was living in Augusta, Georgia, at the time 
and Georgia was one of the states which joined the 
Confederacy, the war did not greatly affect the life 
of the household. Certain foods were scarce and 
prices were high. Also there was no school. 
W^hether this was the reason that Woodrow Wilson 
did not learn his letters sooner is uncertain. At any 
rate he did not learn to read until he was nine years 
old. 

His father was his only, teacher during these years. 
They did not have lessons, but the two would sit on 
the floor and talk for hours. Once a week, usually on 
Monday, they went on an excursion to some point of 
interest in or near the town. One such excursion was 
to some machine shops, where his father showed him 
the process of forging steel. 

298 



WOODROW WILSON 299 

Many books were read aloud in the Wilson family, 
and in this way Woodrow became familiar with the 
stories of Scott and Dickens long before he could read 
them for himself. But the two things in particular 
which he learned from his father were to use good 
English and to think clearly. 

" My best training came from him," wrote the Presi- 
dent years afterward. '' From the time I began to 
write until his death in 1903, when he was eighty-one 
years old, I carried everything I wrote to him. He 
would make me read it aloud, which was always pain- 
ful to me. Every now and then he would stop me. 
' What do you mean by that ? ' I would tell him and, 
of course, in doing so would express myself more 
simply than I had on paper. ' Why don't you say so ? ' 
he would go on. ^ Don't shoot your meaning with bird 
shot and hit the whole countryside. Shoot with a rifle 
at the thing you have to say.' " 

Woodrow's father was pastor of Augusta's leading 
church, the First Presbyterian. The church, an old 
dignified building, stood in the center of a large 
wooded square, and the woods surrounding it were 
the first playground the President remembers. 

Another member of the family was also a preacher. 
This was President Wilson's grandfather Woodrow, 
his mother's father. 

Once his grandfather came to preach in his father's 
church. Mounting the pulpit, he discovered that he 
had forgotten his glasses and was at a loss to know 
how he should read his sermon. Several members 



300 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

of the congregation offered theirs, but of these only 
one pair fitted his eyes, a pair so large that they would 
not stay in place and kept sliding down his nose. 

To the small boy in the front seat, the sermon sud- 
denly acquired a new interest. Watching the specta- 
cles slowly traveling down his grandfather's nose, he 
expected every instant to see them fall and was amazed 
at the cleverness with which his grandfather always 
managed to catch them at the last minute, push them 
up, and go on with his sermon. 

Some time after Woodrow began to go to school, 
the boys of the neighborhood organized a club which 
they called the " Light foot Club." It had two pur- 
poses, to play baseball and to hold parliamentary meet- 
ings. Except that he could run well, Woodrow was 
not a ball player. It is said that, as a young boy, he 
was always in too great a hurry to walk; he ran 
wherever he went. However, it was probably the 
parliamentary meetings rather than baseball that had 
attracted him to the Lightfoot Club. The meetings 
were held in the Wilson barn, to which a gaudy col- 
ored advertisement for deviled ham gave the air of a 
clubroom. All the boys knew parliamentary rules 
and conducted their meetings in the regular manner 
of a legislature. 

A few years later Woodrow's first calling cards, 
which he printed himself, showed that he still had an 
interest in politics. They read, ''Thomas Woodrow 
Wilson, United States Senator from Virginia." 

At a place called Sand Hills, not far from Augusta, 



WOODROW WILSON 301 

lived a small cousin, named Jessie Bones, with whom 
he liked especially to play. He used to ride out often 
on his father's big black horse and spend the day, and, 
sometimes, when his mother was away from home, he 
would stay at Sand Hills for a whole summer. 

As Jessie was not yet old enough to read, he used to 
tell her the stories he read, and in their play they would 
act them out. 

One day, some time after Woodrow had begun to 
read Cooper's '' Leatherstocking Tales," two small but 
very savage looking Indians appeared in the Sand 
Hills woods. Their faces and arms were stained 
with pokeberry juice, they wore headdresses made of 
feathers, and they were armed with bows and arrows 
and tomahawks. Stationing themselves at a lonely 
point on the Augusta road, they lay in wait for their 
victims. With the first passer-by, they dashed out of 
the woods, yelling blood-curdling war cries and bran- 
dishing their weapons. But they never succeeded in 
getting a scalp. In the end, Jessie had to play the part 
of the victim, which was to run the gantlet and 
finally to burn at the stake. 

At other times, when Woodrow was a hunter, it 
fell to Jessie to be a squirrel. Once, when she was 
sitting in the top of a tree the hunter quite unexpect- 
edly made a direct hit with his arrowy and the squirrel 
fell limp and white at his feet. Terrified at the 
thought that he had killed her, he picked her up and 
carried her into the house, crying, " I am a murderer. 
It wasn't an accident. I killed her." But the squir- 
rel soon revived and was found to be uninjured. 



302 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

When he was fourteen, the family moved to Col- 
umbia, South Carolina, where his father became a 
teacher in a Presbyterian school for the training of 
ministers. At this time he was a tall, slim boy, some- 
what frail, and more fond of books than of out of 
doors. Now he was reading the sea tales of Cooper 
and Marryat. Though he had never seen a boat ex- 
cept the river barges on the Savannah, he knew every 
kind of ocean-sailing craft and was as much at home 
among spars, yards, and sails as any seaman. He 
played that he was an admiral of the United States 
navy, detailed to hunt pirates in the south Pacific, and 
he wrote out the story of his adventures each day in 
the form of a government report. This game lasted 
for nearly a year. 

At seventeen he went away to school for the first 
time. He entered a small Presbyterian college at 
Davidson, South Carolina, which, whatever it may 
have offered in the way of an education, did not pro- 
vide its students with many luxuries. The boys took 
care of their own rooms, made their beds, filled their 
lamps, and carried water from a pump out of doors. 
Woodrow thought himself lucky to have a room on the 
first floor. 

The English class at Davidson that year was study- 
ing the history of some of our common words. A dis- 
cussion in class one day brought out the fact that the 
names of certain animals were of Saxon origin, but 
that the same animals, w4ien converted into meat for 
the table, took on Norman names. The k. \ "calf," 



WOODROW WILSON 303 

for instance, the English teacher explained, was an 
old Anglo-Saxon word. 

" But what is calves' meat when served on the table, 
Mr. Wilson?" 

Mr. Wilson was unprepared. 

" Mutton," he answered hurriedly, and " Mutton " 
he was called for the rest of his time at Davidson. 

In his second year he was obliged to go home on ac- 
count of illness and, when he recovered, he did not re- 
turn to Davidson but spent his time tutoring in Greek 
and Latin, preparatory to entering Princeton College, 
as it was then called. 

The following September found him again a fresh- 
man. One of his classmates says that the first thing 
he did upon arriving at Princeton was to rush to the 
library and take down a fat volume on philosophy, but 
this is just a good story. He did go to the library, 
however, and he did take a book from the shelves, but 
it was not a book on philosophy; it was a bound vol- 
ume of an old English magazine which contained a 
series of articles on the lives of English statesmen. 
Though he had read everything he could find on gov- 
ernment all through his school and college days, he has 
since said that the reading of these articles, more than 
anything else, helped to fix his purpose to enter pub- 
lic life. 

From that time on he seems to have been perfectly 
sure of what he wanted and, so far as it was possible, 
chose his studies to fit in with his career. To enter 
public life ^dired, among other things, that he should 



304 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

know how to make speeches, and he began at once to 
study public speaking. He would learn some states- 
man's speech, then go out into the Princeton woods 
and practice it. At home, during vacations, he spent 
hours practicing in his father's church. 

Once the opportunity came to him to try for a prize 
in English Literature. One hundred twenty-five dol- 
lars was offered for the best essay on the plays of Ben 
Jonson and Shakespeare. But when he learned that 
he would have to give considerable time and study to 
the subject, time which otherwise would go to the 
study of government, he gave up all thought of trying 
for the prize. 

Though he was but nineteen when he entered 
Princeton, he had already gained his full height. He 
stood nearly six feet tall, slender and erect. His face 
was serious but his eyes were always aware of every- 
thing amusing that went on, and they lighted with in- 
terest whenever he talked. He had a frank, cordial 
manner that people liked. He joined a club and took 
part in all the regular activities of college life. For 
two years he was managing editor of the college news- 
paper, and, during that time, he also contributed many 
articles to the college magazine. He was also one of 
the managers of the athletic association, although he 
took no part in sports himself. In his work he main- 
tained an average of ninety throughout the four years. 
In addition he learned shorthand to make his note 
taking easier. 

But the thing which set him apart from his fellow 



WOODROW WILSON 305 

students was his absorbing interest in the problems 
of government. As he was always reading and think- 
ing about government, so he was always writ- 
ing about it. And it was this work, done outside of 
college requirements, that brought him fame when he 
was only twenty-three. 

In August of 1879 there appeared in the "Interna- 
tional Review," a magazine devoted to political affairs, 
an article by Woodrow Wilson on '' Cabinet Govern- 
ment in the United States." Had it been written by 
a man with years of experience in the affairs of gov- 
ernment it would have been counted an exceptional 
piece of work. For a college student to have written 
it, a young man of twenty-three, made it a remarkably 
brilliant achievement. 

Success in itself, however, did not interest him par- 
ticularly. He still wanted to know more about gov- 
ernment and in some way make his knowledge count 
in public service. After graduating from Princeton 
in June of 1879, he entered the University of Virginia 
in the autumn of the same year to begin the study of 
law. 

May of 1882 found him an established lawyer in 
Atlanta, Georgia. From a window in the second 
story of 48 Marietta Street hung a shingle which 
read '' Renwick and Wilson," but the two young men 
of this partnership were to learn that it was difficult 
to establish a law practice in Atlanta without private 
means. They waited a year and a half for clients 
that did not come. Meanwhile Woodrow Wilson 



3o6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

went on with his writing -and study of government. 
At the end of that time he discovered that, after all, 
it was the teaching of law rather than the practice 
of it which interested him most, and once more he re- 
turned to college to prepare himself for this work. 

In the fall of 1883 he entered Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity at Baltimore. He had taken a long time to 
find out what he was best fitted to do; now he went 
ahead rapidly. Here, as at Princeton, he impressed 
his fellow students and his teachers with his excep- 
tional mind. He was spoken of as one of the coming 
educators of the country and, before he had taken his 
degree, he was offered a professorship at Bryn Mawr 
College. He was in his thirtieth year when finally he 
began his chosen work of teaching. 

The same year saw his first book, '' Congressional 
Government,'' published. The book had grown out 
of the essay written in his college days, and was no less 
an achievement for a man of thirty than the essay 
had been for a youth of twenty-three. It remains 
to this day the best thing written on government in 
the United States and is counted President Wilson's 
foremost work. 

For twenty-five years, he was to continue his work 
of teaching and writing. From Bryn Mawr College 
he went to Wesleyan University, and from Wesleyan 
back to Princeton, his own college. He taught His- 
tory, Political Economy, and Law. 

During his first year at Princeton, the members of 
his class in Law tried to discover what it was that 



WOODROW WILSON 307 

made him such a successful teacher. The subject of 
law was not particularly interesting, yet the class was 
one of the largest on the university's records. One 
member thought that it was because he was a brilliant 
scholar. Another spoke of his literary ability. A 
third said, " That fellow seems to be a man," and the 
class agreed that this explained it. Booth Tarking- 
ton, the author of the Penrod stories, was the student 
who had found the explanation. 

Year ^fter year the senior class at Princeton voted 
Woodrow Wilson the most popular professor. Their 
choice was probably due to two qualities always pres- 
ent in his teaching, a sense of humor and a sense of 
fairness. There w^as, in addition, one underlying pur- 
pose that ran through all his teaching and all his writ- 
ing. This was to wake up the youth of the nation to 
a sense of right and wrong in the affairs of govern- 
ment, to give to young men and young women about to 
take their places in the world an ideal of serving un- 
selfishly in the interests of the community or the na- 
tion, rather than in their own. 

In 1902 he was elected President of Princeton Uni- 
versity. In his work as president he strove constantly 
to accomplish two things, to make the university more 
democratic and to raise the standard of scholarship. 

One day a group of students were reading a list of 
the new requirements posted on the bulletin board, 
when one of them was heard to remark, " Look here, if 
we're not careful, Woodrow Wilson will turn this 
college into an institution of learning." 



308 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

His position as head of one of our leading universities 
afforded him still greater opportunities for discussing 
public affairs. He was invited to speak in all parts 
of the country and his speeches attracted a great deal 
of attention, for they all had to do with the need for 
reform in schools, in business, in government. So 
generally was he thought to be a popular reform 
leader that many people urged him to enter politics. 
He considered it but had not yet reached a decision, 
when quite unexpectedly he was chosen the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Governor of the state of New Jer- 
sey. 

This was in September of 1910. He was playing 
golf on the links at Princeton University when the 
news of his nomination reached him. A touring car 
had been sent to take him to the Democratic conven- 
tion which was then in session in Trenton, eleven miles 
away. The convention wanted to hear from its can- 
didate what he would do if elected. He stated briefly 
the reforms he meant to carry through and they had 
the convention's approval. Every candidate promised 
reform; that was expected. Once he was in oflice, 
however, he would be guided by the men who had put 
him there. 

Never had politicians so misjudged a candidate, for, 
no sooner was Mr. Wilson inaugurated than he began 
to carry out his election promises. Many of them 
struck at the interests of the very men who had helped 
to secure his nomination. They accused him of in- 
gratitude and went over to the side of his enemies. 



WOODROW WILSON 309 

On the other hand, those who had long suffered op- 
pression from the money interests of New Jersey and 
those who beheved, as he did, in the need for reform 
now gathered round him, RepubHcans and Democrats 
ahke, giving him their hearty support. In the two 
years of his governorship, with the help of the leg- 
islature, he was able to carry out his reforms almost 
to the letter. 

One improvement he secured was a law to regulate 
the corporations of New Jersey and to prevent get- 
rich-quick schemes from becoming established in the 
state, a law which was to save thousands of people 
from losing their money. Another provided for the 
insurance of laboring men against injury in factories. 
A third was the complete reorganization of the school 
system of New Jersey. There were others but these 
will show the kind of promises he had made. 

Meanwhile his career as governor had attracted the 
attention of the whole country. In many sections 
people were coming to regard him as a possible can- 
didate for the presidency. However, of the many 
Democratic candidates proposed, it was not thought 
likely that Governor Wilson would win the nomina- 
tion. 

This was the situation when, in June of 1912, under 
the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, a new party, 
called the Progressive Party, was formed. As it 
drew its members chiefly from the ranks of the old 
Republican Party, the division made it almost certain 
that a Democratic candidate would be elected. 



3IO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The Democratic national convention also met in 
June of 1912. Though the Democratic ])oliticians 
tried in every way to prevent the nomination from go- 
ing to Governor Wilson, it became clear, as the ballot- 
ing progressed, that Wilson was the people's candi- 
date, and he was finally nominated on the forty-sixth 
ballot. 

The election the following November gave Mr. Wil- 
son an overwhelming majority of the votes cast and 
the Democratic party a majority in both houses of 
Congress. 

When Woodrow Wilson came to the presidency he 
had very definite ideas of what the duties of a presi- 
dent should be. They were ideas so different from 
those of other presidents that they startled Americans 
as much as the ideas of Lloyd George had startled the 
British people. For many years it had been the custom 
for the president to leave the business of law-making, 
except for certain recommendations, to Congress. If he 
did not approve of the laws Congress made, he had the 
power of veto. President Wilson, however, believed 
that the office of president should mean something 
more than this. Not only should he recommend new 
laws to Congress, Init he should use every means 
within a president's rights to see that his recommen- 
dations were carried out, that he should be the head of, 
the government, not merely in name but actually, di-^ 
recting its policy and responsible for it, a representa- 
tive of the people as a whole. 

With these ideas, he set to work immediately to 



WOODROW WILSON 311 

bring about the reforms which the Democratic party 
had promised. On April 8th, a month after his in- 
auguration, he called a special session of Congress. 
This had been more or less expected. The unexpected 
was the President's announcement that, instead of 
sending his recommendations in writing, he would go 
before Congress and read his own message. 

The announcement caused great excitement. Only 
two presidents in the history of the United States had 
ever appeared before Congress, and these were George 
Washington and John Adams. For one hundred 
twelve years the practice of sending written messages 
had continued. To overturn it was considered by 
many to be revolutionary. 

Doubtless President Wilson meant it to be, for in 
one hundred twelve years the significance of the presi- 
dent's message had sadly lessened. The custom had 
been for it to be read by a clerk, who usually performed 
his task in a monotonous, hum-drum voice, while mem- 
bers of Congress '' for the most part, attended to other 
business." It was to give new life to an old custom 
that President Wilson now proposed to read his own 
message. 

The scene in the House of Representatives on the 
appointed day was not unlike that in the House of 
Commons when Lloyd George presented his budget. 
The visitors' galleries were crowded, while outside the 
Capitol thousands waited in the vain hope of gaining 
admission. It was to be a joint session of the Senate 
and the House. The members of the House were the 



312 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

first to arrive; then the Senators filed in, and hardly 
had they taken their seats when the President entered 
from a side door and took his place at the desk of the 
reading clerk. The house grew suddenly quiet. 

" Senators and Representatives," the Speaker an- 
nounced, " I have the distinguished honor of present- 
ing the President of the United States." 

Thus, after a century, a president once more ad- 
dressed Congress '' as a human being trying to coop- 
erate with other human beings in a common service." ^ 

At the time of President Wilson's election the 
spirit of a new age was beginning to show itself in 
America, as it w^as also in England and Europe. 
Everywhere the working classes were striving to re- 
move injustice and to bring about equality of oppor- 
tunity. It was not political change alone that they 
sought, but better conditions of living, shorter hours 
of work, higher wages, the chance to be something 
more than cogs in the wheels of industry. 

In accepting his nomination, Woodrow Wilson had 
said that America had at last awakened to the fact 
that ''the rank and file of her people find life very 
hard to sustain," and in his inaugural address he had 
pledged himself in stirring words to ''the cause of 
humanity." The recommendations which he now 
proposed resulted in new laws which were in keeping 
with this pledge. 

First, there was a new tarifif law which reduced the 

1 Woodrow Wilson. Address to Congress, April 8, 1913. 



WOODROW WILSON 313 

excessive profits certain manufacturers had enjoyed 
under the old tariff law and lowered some prices. 
Secondly, an act to establish Federal Reserve Banks 
greatly improved our money system and lessened the 
possibility of panics, such as occurred in 1907. An- 
other law provided for a Federal Trade Commission to 
deal with the trusts and to prevent any one trust from 
controlling too many businesses. A Federal Farm 
Loan Law enabled farmers who had lost their crops 
through drought or frost to borrow enough money 
from the government to get a new start. 

Each of these laws, which were only a few of those 
enacted, was a step forward in the direction of a more 
just and efficient government. Taken together, they 
constituted an achievement which no other adminis- 
tration had equaled in many years, yet in the mind of 
the President, they were but a start toward creating 
better conditions of working and living. 

An Englishman ^ has said that, if one would under- 
stand Woodrow Wilson, one must not fail to recognize 
that the motive which has prompted his actions, both 
as a man and a president, has been an intense desire 
to bring a larger amount of happiness and prosperity 
into the lives of other men. 

Immediately following his inauguration, people de- 
sired to know what kind of man the new President 
was. They were shortly to find out, for no sooner 
had he gone to live in the White House than he took 

1 Woodrow Wilson, A. Maurice Low. 



314 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

the public into his confidence; he said that there 
were certain things about being president that he 
did not like. He did not like, for instance, being a na- 
tional exhibit like the Washington Monument or the 
Smithsonian Institution. It was hard always to look 
like a president. 

" I can hardly refrain every now and then from tip- 
ping the public a wink," he remarked, " as much as to 
say 'It is only ''me" that is inside this thing.'" 

There were also certain customs that a president 
was expected to follow that seemed to him very funny. 
One was that he must leave the room ahead of his 
guests. Good form also forbade his guests to sit 
down while he remained standing. 

" It is very uncomfortable," he complained humor- 
ously, '' to have to think of all the other people every 
time I get up and sit down, and all that sort of thing, 
so that when I get guests in my own house and the 
public is shut out, I adjourn being President and take 
leave to be a gentleman. If they draw back and 
insist upon my doing something first, I firmly 
decline." 

President Wilson had already learned during the 
two years of his governorship that a man who enters 
public life must get accustomed to the public interest 
in whatever concerns him. When the newspapers 
first began to describe his looks and to feature him in 
cartoons, he got hold of a limerick which, he said, ex- 
actly expressed his feeling in the matter. And he 
would quote it with a twinkle in his eyes : 



WOODROW WILSON 315 

"As a beauty I am not a star; 
There are others more handsome by far; 
But my face — I don't mind it, 
For I am behind it; 
The people in front get the jar." 

President Wilson's private study in the White 
House is a plain room in the west wing, where many 
presidents before him have worked and thought over 
the country's problems. It contains simply a flat-top 
desk, a filing cabinet, and a few chairs. The filing 
cabinet is his own. No one touches it except himself 
In it are the many notes and memoranda necessary to 
his work. 

On the President's desk is usually to be found a 
black leather notebook, which contains the memoranda 
of the day. Sometimes the entries are made in Pres- 
ident Wilson's clear, neat handwriting, but more often 
m shorthand, for the shorthand learned in his college 
days still serves to make note taking easier. He is 
also an expert typist and types his own speeches. 

There is a story that, when he was the guest of 
King George of England, the servants of Buckingham 
Palace were greatly mystified by a strange clicking 
sound that seemed to come from the President's room 
m the late hours of the night. Fearing that some- 
thing might have happened to their distinguished 
guest, they tip-toed to the door and listened. The 
sound, though louder, was none the less mysterious 
Finally someone boldly rapped on the door. 



3i6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

'' Come in ! " a voice answered cheerfully. They 
opened the door to discover President Wilson click- 
ing away on a little typewriter, which, he explained, he 
always carried around with him. To see the Presi- 
dent of the United States doing his own typing was a 
shock, so the story goes, from which King George's 
servants have not yet recovered. 

The business office of President Wilson is in the 
main executive offices of the White House proper, and 
it is here that he reports every morning precisely at 
five minutes to nine. The first business of the day 
is dictating letters. After this come the appoint- 
ments. A list of the people he is to see, with the num- 
ber of minutes allotted to each, is made out by his 
secretary and placed on his desk. Usually a caller 
receives five minutes of the President's time, some- 
times only three ; rarely do the minutes run to fifteen. 

Following luncheon, the President goes to the East 
Room, where he receives tourists and people who 
come merely to shake hands with him. Whenever it 
is necessary he holds conferences in the afternoon, 
either with his cabinet or some member of the diplo- 
matic corps. Later, he usually goes for a walk, an 
automobile ride, or has a game of golf. He often 
sees a baseball game and always attends the theater 
at least once a week. Many of the leading actors and 
actresses of the country treasure notes from the Pres- 
ident telling them how much he has enjoyed their 
plays. 

''There is a lot of the bov left in me," he once said. 



WOODROW WILSON 317 

"Tve never forgotten how to play, never forgotten 
how to loaf. I get great relief as I go along by a 
sense of fun in things. There is a constant succession 
of funny things happening." 

Dinner at the White House is at seven. After 
dinner the family usually gathers for a social hour. 
Sometimes the President reads aloud, selecting a story 
or a poem which he likes. Then he goes again to his 
study. This is the part of the day which he reserves 
for himiSelf. His messages, speeches, and letters are 
generally written between the hours of nine and mid- 
night. 

When President Wilson had been in office only a 
little more than a year the Great War came, with con- 
sequences so far-reaching that no country was left 
untouched by them. What it w^as to mean to x\merica 
eventually, few people at that time could foresee. So 
swiftly and unexpectedly had it come that Americans 
had not had time to find themselves. To them it was 
like any other European war, a war of conquest be- 
tween nations. The issue of right and wrong, which 
in the end made the Great War different from most 
other wars, was not very clear on the 1st of August, 
1914. 

President Wilson, whose problems until now had, 
for the most part, concerned America alone, was at 
once confronted wnth the very difficult problems of 
America's relations with the warring nations of Eu- 
rope. There was no doubt in his mind about the course 



3i8 LEADERS OF. THE GREAT WAR 

America should follow. America was a peace-loving 
nation, unprepared for war, and had ever since her 
existence kept aloof from European affairs. Accord- 
ingly, on the 18th of x\ugust. President Wilson is- 
sued a proclamation of neutrality. The time would 
come, he said, when the European nations would need 
the help of some neutral nation to settle their differ- 
ences, and the United States would be called upon to 
play the part of peacemaker. As the friend of all 
nations it was given to us, as it had rarely been given 
to another people, to serve mankind. 

From the 1st of August, 1914, until the 6th of April, 
1917, the President lost no opportunity to put before 
the people this idea that the destiny of America was to 
serve mankind. The principle of unselfishness upon 
which America had acted more than once in her rela- 
tions with other nations was, he believed, the prin- 
ciple which should govern the relations of all nations 
with each other. Throughout the years 1914, 1915, 
and 1916, when war with Mexico seemed possible, this 
was the principle which had governed his own policy. 

"We shall, I confidently believe," said President 
Wilson on one occasion, "never again take another 
foot of territory by conquest. We shall never in any 
circumstances seek to make an independent people sub- 
ject to our dominion . . . The mission of America in 
the world is essentially the mission of peace and good 
will." 

This, he believed, was the ideal of the American 
people. " I have tried to know what America is," he 



WOODROW WILSON 319 

said, " what her people think, what they are, what they 
most cherish and hold dear." 

The proclamation of neutrality, however, had not 
made Americans neutral. From the first they were 
divided into three classes, those who were pro-Ally, 
those who were pro-German, and those who thought 
the war was no concern of ours in any way. 

On May 7th, 1915, the Liisitania was sunk and 
many people thought that war with Germany would 
surely follow, but so divided was opinion in the coun- 
try still that President Wilson did not believe that a 
declaration of war was possible. 

Two years more were to pass before a united people 
finally sanctioned war. Those who, in the beginning, 
did not believe in war came to believe in this war. 
Germany's crimes against the civil populations of Bel- 
gium and France, together with her repeated acts of 
war against the United States — the destruction of 
our factories, the torpedoing of our ships — at last 
convinced Americans that, if their ideals were to be 
upheld, their country must fight. 

On the 2d of April, 1917, President Wilson, ad- 
dressing Congress in special session, reviewed the 
wrongs Germany had committed against the "prin- 
ciples of peace and justice," and asked for a declara- 
tion of war, 

^' It is a fearful thing," he said in conclusion, '' to 
lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most 
terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself 
seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more 



320 LEADERS OF- THE GREAT WAR 

precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things 
which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for 
democracy, for the right of those who submit to au- 
thority to have a voice in their own governments, for 
the rights and liberties of small nations, for a univer- 
sal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples 
as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make 
the world itself at last free. To such a task we dedi- 
cate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we 
are and everything that we have, with the pride of 
those who know that the day has come when America 
is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the 
principles that gave her birth and happiness and the 
peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she 
can do no other." 

To Americans to whom the principles of liberty and 
justice have always been the only things worth fight- 
ing for, perhaps it did not seem so strange that now 
they should fight in order that peoples of whom they 
had never heard might enjoy these things. But to 
the nations of Europe it was a strange and wonderful 
thing. ''The history of the world offers no parallel 
to America's act in offering everything and asking 
nothing.'' 

Once in the war, the President worked night and 
day to bring it to a successful end. There was hardly 
a plan concerning our army, navy, or industries that 
did not have to pass through his hands. Such prob- 
lems as the management of the railroads, the price of 
coal and wheat, the draft law, labor difficulties, mili- 



WOODROW WILSON 321 

tary and naval cooperation with the Allies, all had to 
be thought out in his study. 

That he was able to keep his health under the pres- 
sure of so much work and such heavy responsibilities 
was due to five things, says Admiral Grayson, the 
President's physician, "to his system of work, exer- 
cise, diet, plenty of sleep, and his sense of humor." 

Instead of taking his exercise late in the afternoon 
he now took it the first thing in the morning, lest the 
day's work entirely crowd it out. Sometimes he 
played golf, but usually he went for a horseback ride. 
He chose from the White House stables a fine bay 
horse which he called Democracy. Occasionally on a 
Saturday afternoon he would slip away to the coun- 
try with the family, carrying a picnic lunch and a book 
of poems. Or, if time permitted, he would spend the 
week-end on his yacht, the Mayflozver. On these oc- 
casions he kept in touch with affairs in Washington 
by wireless. 

In speaking of his responsibility in the war, the 
President said: "The awful and overwhelming 
thought was that the country trusted me. My deter- 
mination from the start was to let nothing tempt me 
to override principles. I meant, if possible, to keep 
the country square with principles. I waited for 
clearer air. I made it a point not to read the details 
of what was happening in instances of personal sufifer- 
ing and what seemed individual outrage. I did not 
dare to do so lest I should see red. I feared to be over- 
whelmed by a storm of feeling. 



322 



LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 




WooDROw Wilson 



WOODROW WILSON 323 

" In handling national affairs feeling must not take 
precedence of judgment." 

In March of 1918, when the Germans began their 
drives on Paris, President Wilson at once cabled Gen- 
eral Pershing to offer the American forces to France. 
Although this decision was taken in agreement with 
the General Staff of our army, it was upon the Presi- 
dent that the final responsibility rested. In the same 
way, too, it was his vote which finally decided the 
question of placing the Allied armies under one com- 
mand. There is hardly any doubt now that, had he 
decided differently upon these two questions the war 
would have been greatly prolonged. 

At the same time that he was calling for every re- 
source America had in men, money, and materials, in 
order to win the war, he was preparing with no less 
zeal for the day of peace. When that day should 
come, he said, it should bring to " all peoples and na- 
tionalities the right to live on equal terms of liberty 
and safety with one another, whether they be strong 
or weak." Again and again he spoke of the war as 
the " final war for human liberty," which was to end 
oppression and establish justice in its place. 

To the war-weary peoples of Europe his words gave 
new life and a new hope. They looked to him as leader 
and spokesman for the people's cause. His speeches 
were translated into almost every language, his pic- 
ture found its way into the remotest villages, and the 
American flag became for oppressed peoples every- 
where the symbol of their liberty. 



324 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

The practical means of making possible a lasting 
peace was to be a League of Nations. Instead of the 
old policy, by which a nation got what it could at the 
expense of all others, the nations would enter into a 
relationship of a ''common family," resting both their 
agreements and their differences on the final judgment 
of the League. The idea of a league of nations was 
almost as old as history ; the plan was new only in not 
having been tried in modern times. 

On the 3d of October, 1918, the German Chancel- 
lor had addressed a note to President Wilson, asking 
for an armistice or temporary truce. To this Presi- 
dent Wilson had replied that the only armistice the 
Allies would consider was one which would leave Ger- 
many no chance of renewing the war, and throughout 
the month of October the negotiations continued. 
That month, however, brought one defeat after an- 
other to the German armies, and on November 5th, 
at the request of the German government. Marshal 
Foch presented the terms of the armistice. Follow- 
ing this last event, six days elapsed before word came 
that the armistice had been signed and that the Great 
War had come to an end. 

The word reached President Wilson in his study 
in the White House. With the materials at hand, 
a lead pencil and a half sheet of note paper, he hur- 
riedly wrote a proclamation to the people announcing 
the end of the war. Then word went out that at one 
o'clock he would read the terms of the armistice to 
Congress. 



WOODROW WILSON 325 

Again the galleries of the House of Representatives 
were filled to overflowing. The streets were lined 
with people and Capitol Hill surged with crowds, 
eager for a glimpse of the President. Loud cheering 
marked his arrival, and cheers greeted him again as 
he appeared in the door of the House. It was the 
President's day. Senators and members of the House 
who had disagreed with him on the day before and 
who would disagree with him again on the morrow 
heartily c.pplauded his success in negotiating the end 
of the war. The President also was happy. With the 
autocratic governments of Europe overthrown, it 
remained, he said, " for America to aid in establishing 
a just democracy throughout the world." 

A week after the signing of the armistice. President 
Wilson announced his intention of going to Europe to 
take part in the Peace Conference, and on the morning 
of December 4th, he sailed from New York on the 
steamship George Washington. Thousands of people 
lined the water front to see him off and, as the big 
liner moved slowly down the harbor, they sent up 
cheer after cheer and waved thousands of flags and 
handkerchiefs in farewell. 

On 1)oard the George Washington, beside the 
President's party, were members of the American 
Peace Commission and specialists and advisers on 
European affairs. 

Just after the departure two airplanes suddenly 
swooped down from the clouds and flew out to sea in 
advance of the President's ship. The naval escort 



326 LEADERS OF. THE GREAT WAR 

consisted of the super-dreadnought Pennsylvania and 
five destroyers, which were to convoy the George 
Washington to Brest. Twelve other destroyers ac- 
companied the fleet to a point a hundred miles at sea. 

The guns of the shore batteries and of the naval 
boats at anchor had fired the presidential salute, and 
the George Washington was about to slip through the 
gate of the submarine net into the open sea, when 
President Wilson caught sight of five hundred school 
children weaving flags from the Staten Island shore. 
This was America's last farewell. 

The sound of the Star Spangled Banner floating 
over the harbor of Brest was the first greeting of 
France. It was all but lost, however, in the uproar of 
shouting, singing, and guns thundering in salute. 

Europe's welcome to the President was tumultuous. 
It was a welcome w^hich came from the hearts of 
people who looked to him as the champion of a new 
order of things. For, out of the suffering of the war, 
had grown the hope that there might never be another 
war, and this, the people knew, was also the Presi- 
dent's hope. It was this that had brought him over- 
seas. With flowers and gifts and cries of '' Long live 
Wilson " and " Long live America," they expressed 
their gratitude. 

At 10.30 on the morning of December 14th the 
President reached Paris. An American officer, writ- 
ing from Paris, tells of his reception in the capital 
city of France : 

" Early in the day of President Wilson's arrival, I 



WOODROW WILSON 327 

went to get a look at the crowd outside the Hotel de 
Ville, where the reception was held. Instead of an 
awning over the entrance, it was canopied with the 
richest red velvet, trimmed with gold fringe. Sta- 
tioned within were those magnificently uniformed 
Gardes de Municipale, their shining helmets, rich 
capes, and flashing swords reminding one of court 
days. And then the crowd! There were ladders 
twenty feet high that had been brought out for the oc- 
casion and every one was full; there were little carts 
like the tumbrils that had carried unhappy victims to 
the guillotine; there were kitchen chairs, tables, and 
benches, but over and above all were people, people, 
people on the roofs, in the trees, on shaky poles, on top 
of each other. Fve never seen so many in my life. 

" I managed to worm myself back to our offices, and, 
long before the procession passed by, we knew by the 
booming of the big guns in the presidential salute that 
the first man in the only land had arrived. The mur- 
mur that passed through the crowd was like the gath- 
ering of a storm; the people were crying, laughing, 
singing, roaring all at once — that's France. 

" I had a wonderful place from which to view it all. 
When it came about time for the procession to reach 
the Concorde, I climbed out of our ofifice window on to 
the ledge, from which I could almost touch the car- 
riages as they passed. President and Mrs. Wilson, 
Clemenceau and General Pershing received the most 
applause. Several French people have told me that 
President Wilson made by far the best impression of 



328 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

any of the celebrities. I've seen them all, and none of 
them looked as intellectual or so much 'man of the 
hour ' as he did. 

"One of the prettiest sights of the whole thing I 
obtained from the roof of our building just after the 
President passed. When the divided throng surged 
together in the Place de la Concorde, the light blue of 
the long columns of French soldiers, as they tried to 
wind themselves out of the crowd, stood out in sharp 
contrast to the somber hue of the civilians and the 
khaki groups of American and English soldiers." 

Christmas Day the President spent with the Ameri- 
can troops at Chaumont, our general headquarters. 
This was a visit to which he had looked forward very 
much, and he was up before daylight for the first 
glimpse of the camp from the car windows. After 
an army review he addressed the troops, expressing 
his pride in the achievements of the American army 
and in the spirit with which the men had fought. He 
ate Christmas dinner with General Pershing and his 
staff and that same night left for England. 

The welcome of the British people quite equaled that 
of the French. The King and the Queen met his train 
in London and he was driven to Buckingham Palace, 
along streets lined with cheering crowds. '' In the 
great open space before the palace," writes a corre- 
spondent of the New York Times,^ " a crowd of 
200,000 had gathered. It was an assemblage of all 
classes and ages. People up from the country for the 

1 Edward Marshall, New York Times, Dec. 26, 1918. 



WOODROW WILSON 329 

holidays rubbed shoulders with dwellers in Mayfair. 
Aged Chelsea pensioners hobbled alongside Dominion 
soldiers. Factory girls blocked the view of staff 
officers, and everywhere through the throng were 
American soldiers and sailors, watching a little curi- 
ously to see how their President was received. Sev- 
eral busloads of wounded Tommies were admitted to 
the forecourt of the palace, but they were the only per- 
sons for whom places were reserved. 

" The first intimation that he was approaching was 
the boom of the presidential salute, echoing from the 
high buildings. Then came the sound of cheers. As 
the procession passed along Piccadilly, a quarter of a 
mile away, and turned down Constitution Hill, its 
course could be traced by the tide of sound which drew 
nearer and nearer. . . . The crowd held its cheers 
until the first royal carriage came by and then gave 
vent to its enthusiasm with full energy. Children 
were hoisted on fathers' shoulders, handkerchiefs and 
hats were waved, hundreds of little American flags 
were displayed, and men and women burst into rounds 
of cheers. The President was evidently much pleased. 
He bowed and smiled to right and left. His hat was 
not on his head for a second, and he kept waving it 
as some more than usually exuberant cheers caught 
his ear." 

From England President Wilson went to Italy, and 
everywhere along the way welcoming crowds met his 
train, men and women beseeching him for peace. At 
Milan a delegation of wounded Italian soldiers pre- 



330 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

sented him with a petition for a League of Nations, an 
incident which led him again to speak of the responsi- 
bihties resting on those about to make peace. 

" I am very much touched to receive at the hands of 
wounded soldiers a memorial in favor of a League of 
Nations/' he said, '' and to be told by them that this 
was what they had fought for, not merely to win the 
war, but to secure something beyond, some guarantee 
of justice .... which would make it certain that 
they would never have to fight a war like this again. 

'' This is an added obligation upon those who make 
peace. We cannot merely sign a treaty of peace and 
go home with a clear conscience. We must add so far 
as we can the security which suffering men everywhere 
demand." 

At Rome he stated what he believed to be the only 
way this security could be brought about. " There is 
only one thing that holds nations together, if you ex- 
clude force, and that is friendship and good will. . . . 
Therefore, our task at Paris is to organize the friend- 
ship of the world." 

At the Peace Conference President Wilson, with 
Premiers Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of 
England, and Orlando of Italy, constituted the Coun- 
cil of Four, upon whose decisions rested the settlement 
of all great questions. 

Before the war had ended. President Wilson, in 
agreement with the Allies, had named fourteen condi- 
tions of peace, known as the " fourteen points." They 
were based upon the general principles contained in 



WOODROW WILSON 331 

the President's war message to Congress, the prin- 
ciples of liberty, justice, and the right of all people to 
choose their own form of government. Upon these 
conditions Germany agreed to the signing of the ar- 
mistice. 

At the conclusion of the war, however, there came 
to light some secret treaties, entered into by England, 
France, Italy, and Japan, which, but for America's 
entrance into the war, w^ould have served as the basis 
for peace. Since many clauses in these treaties were 
directly opposed to President Wilson's " fourteen 
points," a compromise had to be made. For, while 
these questions were debated, the civilizations of the 
Old World were rapidly falling to pieces. Some kind 
of peace had to be made, if anarchy and revolution 
were not to spread over all Europe. 

The peace terms, as they were finally written, there- 
fore settled the questions of the Great War in a way 
that was neither the old way nor the new, but a com- 
promise between them. What President Wilson's 
influence was, what decisions he made, just how much 
he succeeded in changing old systems, one cannot know 
until the history of the Peace Conference is written. 

The provision for a League of Nations within the 
treaty, however, was chiefly the work of the President, 
and it is to the League of Nations that he looks for still 
greater changes to be brought about. 

" Many terrible things have come out of this war," 
he said in his address to the Peace Conference on the 
League of Nations, ''but some very beautiful things 



332 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 

have come out of it. Wrong has been defeated, but 
the rest of the world has been more conscious than it 
ever was before of the majority of right. People that 
were suspicious of one another can now live as friends 
and comrades in a single family and desire to do so. 
Men are looking eye to eye and saying: 'We are 
brothers and have a common purpose. We did not 
realize it before now, but now we do realize it, and 
this is our covenant of friendship.' " 

REFERENCES 

Woodrozv Wilson, the Story of His Life, William Bayard 
Hale. 

Woodrozv Wilson, an Interpretation, A. Maurice Low. 

Woodrozv Wilson, the Man and His Work, Henry Jones 
Ford. 

Woodrozv Wilson as President, Eugene C. Brooks. 

Woodrozv Wilson as a Man of Letters, Bliss Perry, Cen- 
tury, 85 : 753. 

Woodrozv Wilson, Sanford Andrews, Cosmopolitan, Octo- 
ber, 1902. 

Woodrozv Wilson, Jesse Lynch Williams, McClure's, Octo- 
ber, 1902. 

President Wilson at Work, Literary Digest, May 24, 1913. 

Hozju Does He Stand Itf David Lawrence, Ladies' Home 
Journal, November, 1917. 

A Talk zvith the President, Ida Tarbell, Collier's, Oct. 28, 
1916. 

Woodrozv Wilson in Europe, Current History Magazine, 
February, 1919. 



GLOSSARY 



KEY 



fate, fat, art, fast, law. 
me, get, her. 
kite, hit. 



s5, not, or. 
too, book, 
ciire, biit, fur. 



FRENCH NASAL SOUNDS 

Syllables of French words having nasal sounds are numbered to cor- 
respond with the following approximate English sounds : 



1 an, en, an as in want. 

2 in, eim, ain, aim, an as in hang. 

Abu Hamed, a-bii ha'med 

Abu Klea, a-bii kla'a 

Aisne, en. 

Albert, al-ber' 

Aldershot, al'der-shot 

Allah, al'a 

Alpins Chasseurs, al-pin'^ sha-sur' 

Alsace, al-sas' 

Annapolis, a-nap'o-lis 

Arab, ar'ab 

Arabic, ar'a-bic 

Arc de Triomphe, ark dii tre-omf'^ 

Artois, ar-twa' 

Atbara, at-ba'ra 

attache, a-ta-sha' 

Auteuil, o-tu'e 

Barfleur, bar-flur' 
Bar-le-Duc, bar-lii-diik' 
Bathlemont, bat-lii-mon''* 
Beatty, ba'te 
Beaumont-Hamel, bo-mon'4 ha-mel' 



3 un, um, un as in grunt. 

4 on, om, on as in don't. 

Belleau, be-lo' 

BlUcher, blu'ker 

Boers, boorz 

Bois de Belleau, bwa du be-lo' 

Bois de Boulogne, bwa dii boo-lon' 

Bolo, b5'lo 

Bordeaux, bor-do' 

Borodale, bo'ro-dal 

Boulogne, boo-lon' 

Bourbon, boor-bon'^ 

Bouresches, boo-resh' 

Brasenose, braz'noz 

Brest, brest 

Breton, Fr. bre-ton''* ; Eng. bret'iin 

Bryn Mawr, brin mar 

Caillaux, ki-yo' 
Cairo, ki'ro 
Calais, ka-la' 
camouflage, cam'oo-flazh 
Cantigny, kan-ten-ye' 
Capelle, ka-pel' 



Z?>?> 



334 



GLOSSARY 



Carency, ka-ren^-se' 
Cassel, ka-sel' 
Castlenau, kast-lu-no' 
Chalons-sur-Marne, sha-lon''*-sur- 

marn 
Champagne, sham^-pan'i-ya 
Champs Elys^es, shamz^ a-le-za' 
Charleroi, shar-lu-rwa' 
Charleville, shar-lu-vel' 
Chateau Thierry, sha-to' te-re' 
Chateau de I'Aubraie, sha-to' du 

lo-bra' 
Chaumont, sho-mon'^ 
Chaumont-en-Vexin, sho-mdn'*- 

ten^-vex'in^ 
Chelsea, chel'se 
Chemnitz, kem'nitz 
clement, kla-men'i 
C16menceau, kla-men^-so' 
Cologne, ko-lon' 
Colville, kol'vil 
Commune, ko'miin 
Criccieth, krik-ke-eth 
Croesus, kre'siis 
Crotta, krot'ta 

datto, da'to 
Dervish, der'vish 
Dixmude, dex-mud' 
Dongola, don'go-la 
Donon, do-non'^ 
Douaumont, doo-o-mon'^ 
Doullen, doo-len'i 
Dupre, doo-pra' 

ifccole Polytechnique, a-kol' po-le- 

tek-nek' 
Eiffel, a-f el' 
El Paso, el pa'so 
El Teb, el teb' 
Escadrille, es-ka-dre'ya 



Fere Champenoise, f er sham^-pen- 

waz' 
Fler, fler 
Foch, f osh 

Fontainebleau, fon-ten-blo' 
Friedrich der Grosse, fre'drik der 

gros'sa 

Gardes de Municipale, gard du mu- 

ne-se-pal' 
Garonne, ga-run' 
Geneva, je-ne'va 
Germain, zher-main'^ 
Gibraltar, ji-bral'ter 
Gondrecourt, gon^-dru-coor' 
Grosetti, gro-set'ti 
Grosvenor, gro'ven-6r 
Guaconayabs, gwa-kon'a-yabs 

Hafir, ha'fir 
Haig, hag- 
Hamburg, ham'burg 
Hannibal, han'i-bal 
Heligoland, hel'e-go-lant 
Hindenburg, hin'den-burg 
Hotel Crillon, o-tel' kre-yon'^ 
Hotel de Ville, o-tel' dii vel' 
Humbert, un^-ber' 

Joffre, Joseph Jacques Cesaire, 
zhof r, zho-sef ' zhak sa-zer' 

kamerad, kam'er-ad 

Kerma, ker'ma 

Khartum, kar-toom' 

Kiel, kel 

Kimberley, kim'ber-ly 

Kitchener, kitch'en-er 

Konigen Luise, ku'ni-ken loo-e'sa 



GLOSSARY 



335 



Koran, ko-ran' 
Kriemhilde, krem-hirda 

Laclede, la-cled' 

Lafayette, la-fa-et' 

Lafayette Escadrille, la-fa-et' es- 

ka-dre'ya 
Lancashire, lan'ka-sher 
Lanao, la-na'o 
Laon, lan^ 
Lens, lans^ 
Lille, lei 

Llanystnmdwy, lan-u-stimd'wi 
Loos, los 

Lorraine, Fr. lo-ren' ; Eng. lo-ran' 
Ludendorff, loo'den-dorf 
Luxembnrg, lux'em-burg 
lycee, le-sa' 
Lyons, Fr. le-on'* ; Eng. li'ons 

Mah^, mal-ve' 

Marche Lorraine, marsh lo-ren' 

Marne, marn 

Marquis de Chambrun, mar-ke' dii 

shami-brun'^ 
Marseillaise, Fr. mar-sa-yez' ; Eng. 

mar-sa-laz' 
Maubeiige, mo-buj' 
Meaux, mo 
Megan, me'gan 
Metemma, me-tem'ma 
Metz, metz 
Meuse, muz 
Milan, mi-lan' 
Mindanao, min-da-na'5 
Mons, mons^ 
Montceau-les-Provins, mon^-so'-la- 

pro-vin'2 
Montdidier, monMe-de-a' 
Montmartre, mon'*-mar'tr 



Morlaix, mor-la' 
Moro, mo'ro 

Namur, na-miir' 
Nancy, nan^-se' 
Nantes, nant^ 
Ney, na 
Nieuport, noo-por' 

Omdurman, om-der-man' 
Orlando, 6r-lan'do 
Ourcq, oork 

Palestine, pal'es-tine 
Peiho, pa-ho' 
Pekin, pe-king' 
Perpignan, per-pen-yan'^ 
Petain, Henri Philippe, pa-tain'^, 

an^-re' fe-lep' 
Picardy, pe-kar-de' 
Place d'Armes, plas darm' 
Place de la Concorde, plas dii la 

kon^-kord' 
Plancy, plan^-se' 
Pleur, pier 
poilu, pwa-loo' 
Poincare, pwain^-ka-ra' 
Portmadoc, p5rt-ma'd6k 
Pyrenees, per'e-nez 

Rennes, ren 

Rethondes, rii-tond'^ 

Reuterdahl, roi'ter-dal 

Rheims, Fr. rans; Eng. rems 

Rivesaltes, rev-salt' 

Rue Constantine, rii con^-stan^-ten' 

Saint Bon, sain^ bon'^ 

Saint Clement, sain^ kla-men'i 

Saint Cyr, sain- ser' 

Saint ;fetienne, sain^ ta-te-en' 

Saint L.ond, sain^ gon'^ 



336 



GLOSSARY 



Saint Michel, sain^ me-shel 
Saint Mihiel, sain^ me-e-el' 
Saint Omer, sain^ to-mer' 
Saint Quentin, sain^ ken^-tin'^ 
San Diego, san de-a'go 
San Juan, san wan' 
Santiago, san-te-a'go 
Sedan, sa-dan'' 
Seydlitz, sid'Iits 
Seymour, se'mor 
Shabluka, shab-loo'ka 
Sirdar, sir-dar' 
Soissons, swa-son'4 
Somme, siim 
Sommesous, sum-soo' 
Souilly, soo-ye' 
Spa, spa 
Staten, stat'en 
Sudan, soo-dan' 

Tamai, fa-ma'e 
Tarbes, tarb 
Tientsin, te-ent'sm 
Timbuctoo, tim-biik'too 



Torcy, tor-se' 
Toul, tool 
Transvaal, trans-val' 

Valentine, val-an^-ten' 

Vaux, vo 

Vendee, ven^-da' 

Verdun, ver-dun'^ 

Versailles, Fr. ver-si'ya ; Eng. ver- 

salz' 
Vesle, val 

Villa, Pancho, vil-a, pan'cho 
Villers-Cotterets, ve-ya'-ko-tra' 
vive, vev 

Vive I'Amerique, vev la-ma-rek' 
Vive la France, vev la frans^ 
Von Kluck, fun klook' 
Vosges, voj 

Wady Haifa, wa'de hal'fa 
Woolwich, wool'ich 

Ypres, epr 

Zanzibar, zan'zi-bar 



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A^"^ ■• > Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
^^ * 'V ^^ ',*^ Treatment Date: lyi .y ncMi 

^<^ , - o ^ "^^ PreservationTechnologies 

111 Thomson Park Drive 




<<• 'imm^'': ^" •^*. 




Cranberry Township. PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 













^^ JAN 79 

wS^ N. MANCHESTER, 



